


The Wrath of the Wolf

by Willsblackstag



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Bottom Hannibal, Cannibalism, Dark Will Graham, Dominance, M/M, Manipulative Hannibal, Manipulative Will, Murder, Murder Husbands, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Top Will, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-27 23:40:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 56,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5069368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willsblackstag/pseuds/Willsblackstag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following their fall into the sea, Will and Hannibal busy themselves by analysing and hunting down new dragons, if mainly to avoid analysing the nature of their relationship. It's only a matter of time, however, before something gives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He had retired to his bed earlier that evening, fully aware he would be spending a good hour staring at the ceiling, the corner of the room, the faint light reaching past the gaps in the closed door. The quiet sound of music on the other side told him Hannibal was still awake. Will wondered what he was doing. Researching their killers. Drinking wine. Finishing a drawing. In some ways, it surprised him how quickly they threw themselves into life following the fall, as though brushing shoulders with death had inspired them to continue. Just like that time he'd made the phone call, Will decided last minute that death was not what he wanted for Hannibal, and therefore not what he envisaged for himself. Once Hannibal understood this, he worked together with Will to survive. How they managed to get to safety became nothing more than a blur, much like those moments when Will had eased back and unwittingly allowed the drugs administered by Hannibal to course through his veins, taking him to another place. Without protest from Will, Hannibal had taken the lead in choosing a location in which they could lay low for a while; Will himself had feasible options, but he didn't care to share them with Hannibal at the time and neither did the man seem interested. And yet it was refreshing not to have to think so hard as to make your brain hurt, tossing aside this caution which had haunted him for years - all those attempts to read into the other's actions. For a time, it felt nice to trust Hannibal like he had in those early days of ignorance. And, as they began their course on this unknown path, the willingness, perhaps even eagerness, to continue in their new arrangement meant they could focus on anything and everything except the real question at hand: why hadn't they killed one another yet? 

Will could try to simplify the situation. He could say that between their combined efforts, they had solved the problem of the great Red Dragon where others had failed. Following this, they now take it upon themselves to restore justice in whatever way they see fit. In this, Hannibal seemed to take the back seat, permitting Will the freedom to dictate with an expression of polite amusement, his eyes curiously observing everything Will did with neither approval nor disapproval. And so, they focused on their recovery and started a new chase in the meantime: a partnership almost as deadly as their own. In no time at all, the elusive couple had left a string of bodies in their wake with evidence that defiantly escaped profiling. _It would appear the male ejaculated prior to, during, or after each killing,' _Hannibal had said. Biological evidence collected from the crime scene would suggest the female also found similar release. The linking of violence with sexual activity wasn’t new, but it didn’t make for an easy bout of empathising on Will's behalf.__

Will swallowed dryly and reached for the glass on the bedside table only to find it empty. He had gone two days without sleep and now considered flooding his brain with alcohol until it had no choice but to sink, into what dire subconscious he dreaded to think, but he was too exhausted to fear the prospect. Hannibal had warned against it, said it would be the beginnings of an ill habit, the opening of a floodgate. Will said he thought they had already been opened, and when Hannibal watched him with that bemused half-smile, added in a flat, both accusatory and accrediting monotone, "you let them all out."

Closing his eyes, he fell into an unexpected sleep and waded hesitantly through the darkness spun by his subconscious until it beckoned him familiarly, placing a knife in his hand and pushing him stumbling forward into a field of bodies. Limbs locked haphazardly in a tattered daisy chain, the glassy surfaces of eyes reflecting the glow of the moon slipping out from the black clouds of his mind. He made his way through, feet navigating their own steps, each one wet from the crimson puddles pooling beneath a leg, an arm, a head, mingling in an endless network of death. The earth, labouring under the weight of overripe corpses, rose upon Will's approach into the slope of a hill. The ascent became steep and strenuous, and he stumbled more than once, crushing putrid flesh and bone under his heel as his hands shot out to purchase a hold on the cluttered and almost vertical wall before him. His chest heaved as though he had been climbing for hours, his lungs burning from within. Something suddenly gave under his foot – soil or flesh, he could not tell – and he dug his knife into the mass before him, felt the unexpectedly hot spray sting his face and eyes, could taste it even though his lips were pressed together. The fingers of his climbing hand sank now and then into matted hair and loose hanging lips, their very tips grazing the sharp and dull surfaces of teeth before his scrabbling finally placed him at the summit. He panted for his breath, sweat sticking his hair to his face and the back of his neck. No writhing bodies greeted him here except one. 

Her pale skin shone luminous in the dark. Her naked body arched backwards in the throes of pleasure. Her hands stroked red up her spread thighs, her stomach, her breasts, clawed at the throb in her throat. Will went to her with borrowed hunger, stopped to bend over her prone figure and press the blade of the knife to her throat as he undid his belt with his other hand. Her lips snarled in silence but he could hear the words in his head: _do it, Richard, cut me. _He pressed the knife harder against her skin, a hairline from drawing blood, and entered her. Barely giving her a chance to breathe, he fucked her so hard, each jerk of her body brought her down upon the point of the blade a little more. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and Will knew she was coming, felt her tighten around him. His hand snaked into her hair, snatched a fat handful of blond and jerked hard enough to tear. This time he heard it: a piercing scream half shrill with euphoria, half shrill with agony as he thrust the knife through her throat. It died instantly into a viscous gurgle as he tore through the larynx, reached his own climax at the sight of severed skin, muscle, arteries, her head hanging off to one side by shredded sinew pulled taut and inviting. Famished, he fastened his teeth on those fine red threads, gnashed like a wolf and _pulled _. He woke with the taste of blood in his mouth.____

Hannibal listens to the pounding of bare feet across the landing and turns his face to the open doorway. He watches Will storm into his room, his shorts and tee clinging to his body with sweat, his arms held tensely out at the sides. His eyes rolled into the back of his head with a twitching of lashes. When Will grabs him by the front of his half-unbuttoned waistcoat, Hannibal responds by holding on to the other's damp biceps, his steely grip keeping the sleepwalker at bay so he can make a quick assessment of his unseemly visitor of the night. "No, luck, Will?" he asks, continuing to fight the body as it presses forward. "Perhaps we should give the hypnosis another try?" His lip curls upwards as Will appears to acknowledge his question and respond with a renewed effort to overpower him. For his own curious amusement, Hannibal allows Will to get close enough for him to feel the feverish breaths blowing from his lips, and smell the mixture of stale and fresh sweat. The close contact makes him reminisce for the fraction of a second that moment on the cliff. He feels, in Will's arms, the hard tension coiled in the bunched muscle as tight as a crossbow cocked for too long a time, reinforced with the rage following a missed opportunity to take a shot. "Marvellous," he chuckles lowly, the sound triggering the loosing of the bow, and yet he does not protest when Will bites his neck. Testing the strength of the other's teeth, Hannibal accepts the assault until the vice of dull incisors and pointed canines break through skin to sink into muscle. Liquid heat begins to run, staining the open collar of his shirt. His nerves strain under the onslaught, shooting sharp and burning between a sweet heat and a heated agony.

At last, he snares a hand in Will’s hair and yanks hard from the roots. Holding fast, Will bites harder, his top and lower jaws straining to meet over another millimetre. It is both next to nothing and enough to make it unbearable, and everything to follow is executed with a staggered urgency as both men struggle against one another: Hannibal’s hand on Will’s throat, closed and choking, his other hand twisting the skin around the wrist of the hand still clawing at his clothes. He watches Will begin to falter with a face growing increasingly flushed, feels a slackening in those stubborn jaws as he chokes Will with more force. Like a beaten dog, Will lets go with a breathless yelp, only to snap extra hard at a rupture in Hannibal's skin, and even as Hannibal grabs Will's head and digs his fingers cruelly into the stitches in his cheek, the other abruptly wrenches his head away, pulling free the paper thin flesh nipped tight between his teeth. With a stifled groan, Hannibal manages to shove Will back, and he stares at his assailant with lidded eyes, his mouth slightly agape as he breathes, watching with excited admiration as that flap of skin disappears into Will's mouth, a deep laughter bubbling out at the same time as he chews. Hungry for more, Will lunges forward again, and Hannibal stops him before he can get too close. Shoving a hand into his throat, he winds Will enough to send him stumbling backwards and down, his head, Hannibal suspects, now swimming with the rush of bloodlust. Moving to stand over Will, he punches him across the face when he tries to get up, then once more for good measure. Then, leaving Will spluttering and gasping for his breath on the floor, he goes to get the needle and syringe. 

Will wakes to the smell of coffee. The bedsheet is dry beneath his body. His face aches. Lifting a hand, he touches the stitching in his cheek, finds it neat and tight. His fingers move to his mouth and finds a cut in the middle of the bottom lip. Dragging himself out of bed, he leaves his room and goes downstairs. “Good morning,” greets Hannibal as Will steps into the kitchen, the tiles cool beneath his bare feet. He stands there watching Hannibal watch the coffee machine, observing the way those hooded eyes focus on the glass cup. His white shirtsleeves are rolled up to the elbows, exposing deep scratch marks over his forearms. The watch on Hannibal’s wrist tells him he has overslept. He sits down on one of the bar stools, eyes falling on the steaming cup placed in front of him. Across the polished granite, Hannibal leans on his arms, the white shape of his figure reflecting vividly in its black surface. Will’s gaze meets Hannibal’s over the glass rim as he swallows, the coffee washing hot and acrid down his throat, twisting his face with a frown. He pauses, then takes another deep, punishing gulp as Hannibal watches on.  


"Did you give me something?" he finally asks, putting down the cup and looking at Hannibal who smiles good-naturedly as he watches Will through the spikes of hair falling across his eyes.  
“Did you sleep well?” he asks in return.  
Will nods and glances aside in realisation.  
"Wouldn't you say that is encouraging a bad habit?" he says flatly, bringing his eyes back round to the other. Hannibal copies Will’s deliberately blank expression and resumes his position at the coffee machine.  
"Drugging you wasn't the method intended," he says, adding lightly, "this time."  
Will continues to listen. "But I foresaw a lengthy and laborious night ahead of us if we were to continue the way we were.”  
"A rather polite way of saying a long night spent trying to kill each other," he murmurs, lifting the cup yet finding he cannot take another sip. Placing it back down, he moves his hand onto the granite.  
"Did I try to kill you?" he asks, keeping his eyes on his hand.  
"No," came the simple reply.  
"If I try to kill you in my sleep again," he says lowly, pausing for a moment before continuing, "don't let me." He looks up and finds Hannibal smiling at his coffee.  
"If you try to throw us off a cliff again, should I let you?"  
Will continues to look at Hannibal who continues to drink his coffee. Lowering his cup, he regards Will without a smile.  
"You couldn't kill me if you tried, Will," he says plainly, "you know that now."  
Still unable to say anything, Will remains silent, holding that black stare as it invades him through his pupils and reaches deep inside. Hannibal moves to take both their empty cups.  
"You have to want it," he says, a subtle smile on his lips before he turns his back on Will and walks to the sink.  



	2. Chapter 2

Hannibal hears footsteps outside his door and pauses in the middle of turning the page. Closing the book, he puts it down on the bedside table and gets out of bed. Adjusting the belt of his dressing gown, he pulls open the door to find Will stood at the top of the stairs. He looks at Hannibal and clears his throat before looking away again.  
"Can't sleep."  
"Would you mind if I joined you?"  
"No."

Will studies the small white bowl of homemade pate, knowing there would never be any recognisable shapes in the thickly blended paste, and yet looking out for them nonetheless. When Hannibal had told him he was ‘perfecting his foie gras,’ Will had searched the entire premise, even the garden shed, expecting to find someone tied down with a tube down their throat. Now he watches the glint of the butter knife as Hannibal spreads the pate evenly across a cracker and bites into it with delicate relish.  
"You haven't answered my question," he says after swallowing. Will turns his eyes back on his bowl of cereal.  
"I'm still thinking."  
"It's not a difficult question."  
"It shouldn't be, but it is," he mutters stubbornly, staring at the milk.  
"Ah, then allow me to rephrase. Are you having difficulty differentiating between your own needs and those you have empathised with?"  
Will glances aside at the almost empty white bowl.  
"Yes."  
"May I propose an experiment of sorts which may help you to separate the two?"  
Will does not protest, but neither is he comfortable with where this could be going.  
"An experiment?" he echoes warily.  
"Yes," replies Hannibal, turning his face to look Will over like a scientist with his lab rat, and yet not entirely without fondness, "a controlled experiment, of course." When Will says nothing, Hannibal tilts his head ever so slightly, eyes lidding as he continues to regard Will.  
"Do you trust me?"  
"No," says Will, frowning as he breaks eye contact to stare once more at the contents of his bowl, "but I suppose I owe you one."  


The great murmuring of the room wraps around him like the bottomless depths of the sea, loud and hushed all at once. Will brushes lint from the top of his trouser leg and re-clasps his hands in his lap, watching the pockets of elegantly dressed people around him. He welcomes every small detail in what feels like a completely new environment following a period spent in relative confinement: the musical tinkle of feminine laughter, the men’s hushed, almost secretive murmurs, the seductive wafts of perfume interlaced with the more ruthless aftershave, coming and going like a constant tide around his head. He wonders how Hannibal is coping with this heady cocktail of scents and turns his head towards the bar, sees it is incredibly busy, but can just about make out the lacquered hair, the sharp cut of cheekbone. A small group of women sweep close to the settee in a sumptuous display of satin and silk, a couple of them contemplating whether or not to sit down and exchanging smiles with Will as he looks up, their eyes lingering curiously on his stitches. One of them says hello, asks if he is enjoying his evening. Will says that he is and is about to return the formality when the group starts to move away. They exchange smiles again before she merges with the other bodies, a blur of rich colours dulled by the dim lighting of the chandeliers.

“Vincent,” says the familiar voice, and Will looks over his shoulder to find Hannibal stood by the back of the settee, watching down at him with a pleased look on his face. He is holding a glass of wine in each hand while a young woman hangs by his side, looking equally as pleased; her eyes, large and wide set, are trained on Hannibal, reminding Will of a cat. “I would like you to meet Sophia,” says Hannibal, passing him a glass. “Sophia, this is Vincent.” Those feline eyes turn to Will, laps him up like a dish of milk.  
“Hello, Vincent,” she says, red lips drawing back in a smile to reveal very even white teeth. Will takes a slow sip of his wine without breaking eye contact.  
"Hello, Sophia."  


It is with a certain glamour that the three of them climb the red carpeted marble steps of the hotel chosen by Hannibal. Sophia’s hand elegantly clutching satin the colour of the champagne bottle clutched in Will’s. Beads of condensation running down along the sleek neck and tickling the skin of his fingers. Hannibal’s left hand resting low on Sophia’s back, his fingertips stroking along the slippery satin as she moves. The room they enter is spacious, lit up by the distant glowing lights of the city through a wall of glass. Will would have been comfortable in the dark, their movements revealed only by a city light reflecting in the glassy surface of the eye, or the shining surface of a moistened lip. As though Hannibal had read his mind, he does not turn on any lights, choosing instead to bask in the almost ghostly white light coming through the window.  
“Would you like some champagne, Sophia?” asks Hannibal, already moving to collect three glasses from the table. Will opens the bottle and pours a good measure into each, conscious of her eyes on him. Hannibal waits for Will to take his own glass before pacing over to the bed upon which Sophia is sat. Her eyes flicker from Will to Hannibal with anticipation.  
"Now," says Hannibal with a smile, "why don't you tell us about yourself, Sophia?"  


Will is not sure how long he has been in the bathroom, but he continues to stand with his hands on the edge of the sink, staring down into the bowl. When he comes back into the room, Hannibal has gone. Sophia pulls herself up into a stand, grasps the zip at her back and undoes her dress in one fell swoop. The garment falls into a shimmering pool at her feet which she steps over as she comes towards Will. He puts his hands on her waist as she tugs free his shirt and fumbles with his belt buckle. She presses her mouth against his and he kisses her back hesitantly, marvelling after such a while without having kissed another person, at the softness of lips, and the warmth of a wet tongue probing against his teeth. His body grows excited as Sophia presses against him, makes appealing little groans in between kisses as she slips her hand down to squeeze him through his trousers. Will snatches her upper arms, spins her around before pushing her down roughly against the bed and pinning both her wrists against her back.  
“Do it,” she breathes, arching under his hold, “do it, Richard, _cut me _.” Will inhales sharply through the nose.__  
“What did you say?” he whispers, heart suddenly racing.  
“Fuck me, Vincent,” Sophia murmurs sleepily into the covers, “I’ve been a bad, bad girl.”  
Releasing her, Will backs into a chair and half falls into it. Sophia continues to mumble into the bed but makes no attempt to get up. When she finally rolls herself over onto her back, her eyes are closed and her lips have stopped moving. Her chest rises and falls as she sleeps. Stiffly, Will stands from the chair, walks over to Sophia's prone body and pulls the cover over her. He gives the room a careful survey before leaving.  


Hannibal is found at the hotel bar, sitting in a leather armchair opposite Bedelia. A second look confirms, to Will's relief, that it is in fact merely a lookalike. He approaches in their direction. Hannibal catches sight of him from the corners of his eyes.  
"Vincent," he greets Will with a pleasant smile, "is everything alright?"  
"May I speak to you for a moment?" asks Will, glancing at the woman sat in the chair to find her glancing back at him, her eyes hovering curiously on his stitches.  
“Of course,” says Hannibal, turning back to the woman with a polite smile. “Please excuse me.”  


The lateness of the hour has left the roads almost completely empty. As Hannibal drives down these back roads, the headlights of the car slice through the darkness to reveal the trunks of trees stretching out for miles. Watching out the window, Will half expects to see antlers.  
“Do you miss Bedelia?” asks Will, breaking the silence.  
“Bedelia was always good company,” replies, Hannibal. "Do you miss your wife?"  
Will closes his eyes and opens them again. Is convinced he just saw the flash of a black creature running through the trees.  
"Molly was always good to me."  
"Good to you, or good for you?"  
A pause as Will continues to stare out the window, his eyes suddenly heavy.  
"I don't know what's good for me," he murmurs, "I thought I knew what was bad."  
"Close your eyes, Will," says Hannibal, eyes half closed as he watches the road unravelling ahead, "wade into the quiet of the stream."  



	3. Chapter 3

Just as he closes his eyes, he hears the sharp intake of breath and feels the sharp lurching of the car. His hands dart out instinctively for leverage: the handle above the window and Hannibal’s right shoulder. As they swerve towards the barrier, he glimpses through the windscreen, two small white discs of reflected light and the dark, indistinct mass of some unknown creature. The car doesn’t collide with the barrier, but comes instead to a screeching stop not far from it. Unbuckling his seat belt, Will opens his door and climbs out of the car. He stands on the road watching the creature stood across them, impressed by its apathy towards their vehicle and the risk of collision. The glare of the headlights confirm it is merely an animal and not whatever creature of darkness Will has been expecting. However, this does not render it any less imposing. The white light reveals a tall body of exceptionally long limb, neck, and face. The sheer monstrosity of its size and the supreme alertness suggested by its large triangular ears which point straight up at the sky are softened somehow by the low hanging jowls of its face.  
"Here, boy," says Will out of habit, keeping his voice quiet even though this beast does not seem easily spooked. Its small, wide-set eyes watches Will's raised hand with mild interest.  
The driver's door clicks open. Those white discs turn on Hannibal as he steps out of the car.  
"Have you made a new friend, Will?"  
Will's eyes leave the beast's to meet Hannibal's.  
"I hope so."  


It is already with a sense of familiarity that Will walks into the kitchen. He hesitates to call it the feeling of being home, but it isn't far off. If home is a place of respite, this may be considered one of sorts. He stands there holding the brown paper bag stuffed full of tins. On their way back, they stopped at a twenty four hour convenience store and bought whatever dog food they had in stock. Will had almost emptied the store's supplies when, stood at the till, thinking about the sheer size of the dog, decided he would go back for the last two cans.  
"What do you think?" he asks, watching their guest pace the perimeters of the kitchen and lower its heavy black head to sniff the edges of units and the bottoms of bar stools. "You're making the place look small," he says, unable to help a half smile as he allows the old comfort of seeing man's best friend seep back into his being.  
"Do you have a name?" he asks idly, sinking slowly to a squat and placing the bag down on the tiles. Mimicking his movement, the dog lowers itself into a sit, his beady eyes watching Will unblinkingly. Resting his arms atop his thighs, Will stares into black. They stay like that for a while, listening to each other's hushed breathing. Will sees a shadow emerge within those black orbs but does not break eye contact.  
"Why did you leave?" he murmurs, watching the shadow linger at the doorway.  
"I wanted to give you some privacy," replies Hannibal amiably. Inhaling a breath, Will slowly stands.  
"You assured me," he begins to say, voice quiet and non-accusatory, "that this experiment of yours would be kept under control at all times."  
"You have reason to believe it wasn't?"  
Will watches down at the dog who seems determined to win the staring contest.  
"You weren't there."  
"No."  
"Something could have happened."  
"Such as?"  
"To the girl."  
"You mean to suggest you could have lost control and killed her?"  
"Was it not implied from the moment you designed the experiment," says Will, turning around slowly to face the other. Hannibal's eyes are as black as the dog's, reflecting starkly his own reflection. The barely veiled contempt. His hands curled unconsciously into fists.  
"You sound surprised, Will," says Hannibal, turning his eyes to the dog, his tone bored and flippant, "and yet you said yes knowingly."  
"Knowingly," repeats Will, grimacing like he's suddenly tasted a bitter concoction.  
"Knowingly," echoes Hannibal, eyes giving Will a perfunctory glance from the corners as he walks past him towards the dog, leaving Will watching the empty threshold. He listens to Hannibal speak to the dog until he can no longer contain the disappointment. He turns his face to watch beast crouched before beast.  
"I forgot I remain merely a thing to be toyed with," he says through his teeth, remembering with some bitterness the trusting naivety with which he had apologised for dragging Hannibal into his world, and the response which now galls him like a wound reopened: _I got here on my own, but I appreciate the company. _  
"But you didn't get here on your own," he adds before walking away.__

A week passes by, days spent tracking their two killers in relative silence save for those moments which called for dialogue: a confirmation of some sort, the flagging of potential problems ahead, the repetition of alternative options reserved as back-up in case things went wrong. Some days saw them watching from afar, the team of people in their white overalls and brushes, the autumn wind stirring the yellow tape into a frantic rustling. Whatever unease Hannibal had managed to stir up inside Will would have been dropped, temporarily, into the dark depths until the former decided to provoke it into surfacing again. Often, Will would find himself stood beside Hannibal at a crime scene with his eyes closed, shutting the falling swirl of rust red leaves from his sight before the swing of the yellow ticker returned them to him in all the mellow gradients of a sunset, still fixed to their branches. It is this notion of industry that keeps Will occupied and from dwelling on anything he would deem unproductive - questions he still has and knows he won't get the answers for, be they aimed at the man he is stuck with or himself. Sometimes, staying busy lends Will a pretend calm which he nevertheless embraces, especially at the end of a long day when, within the walls of their retreat from what felt like the rest of the world, something inside him relaxes a little and his spirits lighten just like any ordinary soul returning home from work. When Will appears content, it seems to affect Hannibal too, and sometimes this leads to less guarded conversation.  
“It's nice to see you in good spirits,” Hannibal said one evening at the dining table. Will had looked up from his food in consideration, chewing, smiling, then falling back to his meal.  
“I feel good,” Will replied simply and Hannibal had cocked his head to one side as he continued to slice through his fillet.  
“Did you masturbate?” he asked offhandedly, and Will received the question with graceful ease, as though Hannibal had asked if he’d remembered to feed the dog. Will merely lofted his eyebrows in response as he forked his vegetables and stuffed them into his mouth. Then, unexpectedly, he allowed the good humour to continue.  
“Did you?” he asked, but before Hannibal could reply, Will had briskly resumed eating with a food-muffled mutter of, “I don't want to know.”

“So,” Hannibal says, the first word spoken in what seems like hours since they’d arrived. Previously, the only sounds keeping them company were that of leaves stirred by the wind and the odd rustling of wings from above; safely out of reach, the birds themselves deemed it too soon to be sharing their birdsong let alone leave the warmth of their nests. Will imagines sinking through the blanket of leaves beneath him, past the heavy damp earth, straight down into some secret womb where he would hibernate like a bear, blissfully oblivious until it realised there was a flea in its ear.  
“What pleasurable pastimes are shared by the Graham household on the day of rest?”  
“Pleasurable by whose standards?” Will asks, continuing to search for any signs of disturbance through the binoculars; looking down through the thick web of shedding treetops from this angle, the forest below is deceptively peaceful.  
“Walter’s. Molly’s,” answers the voice by his side, “yours.” Will glances sideways at Hannibal resting on his belly with his arms bent in front of him like a bored and idle lion, chin in one hand. If there had been a vantage point higher than theirs, Will would loathe for an outsider to come across them now: a couple of men lying prone and ridiculous on the ground, buried slowly by falling leaves.  
“Not lying in wait for murderers,” Will mutters, turning his eyes back into the binoculars, “not that I’m finding this pleasurable.”  
“The predator reveals its true self upon the arrival of its prey,” Hannibal exhales as he rolls over onto his back with a dry rustling.  
“Someone’s coming.”  
Will follows with his binoculars the two figures moving into view, recognises the pale golden hair worn loose on the female, fluttering bright against the dim of the hour. Her partner walks more slowly, at a short distance behind her, head down as though he is thinking while she leads the way.  
“They’re early,” says Hannibal, voice hushed.  
“They’ve stopped,” Will half-whispers, watching the man continue to stare at the ground and wondering what new and unpredictable thoughts could be running through the head of a killer, “why hesitate?”  
“He is not hesitating,” Hannibal corrects and Will breaks briefly from the binoculars to look at him, lying with his hands clasped over his stomach. “You know this,” Hannibal adds, and it is true. They both know what is about to happen, Will more clearly so than Hannibal; he can see the glint in her eye when she looks back, as though he is down there, stood behind her himself, inhales deep into his nostrils the same, dank scent of leaves scattered up against the dark as he picks up his feet, gains speed, and tackles her down into the earth. The distant sound of their fall does not appear to interest Hannibal - he seems distracted by the leaves spiralling out of the sky and landing always at a touch away, as though repelled by some invisible barrier. The binoculars are still in Will’s hands, temporarily forgotten as the sounds of struggle and sex travel up towards them from the forest floor below, as he watches Hannibal picking up by the stalk, a splayed leaf from where it had managed to brush against his face, steal a kiss from that ruthless mouth. Heavy-lidded eyes turn on Will, watching him from the corners.  
“You're not going to observe?” Hannibal murmurs from beneath the leaf obscuring the lower half of his face like a fan. “Or do you find it pleasurable, staring at my face.”  
“Which is the lesser evil?” Will mutters, giving Hannibal a cool once-over.  
He shifts on his arms, tugging up the collar of his coat before settling to watch the unfolding debauchery with the same apathy as he would have towards spectating a sports match. Perhaps the repetitive nature of emphatic re-enactments in his mind has dulled any immediate sexual inspiration, no matter how keenly he had felt those pangs of sexual hunger when he was busy reliving the scene. He admitted that sometimes he came out of his trances a little warmer than before, and he suspected Hannibal could smell his perspiration, but the other never cared to comment, much to his relief.  
“We could kill them now,” says Hannibal lightly, tapping the dead leaf against his mouth.  
“No,” says Will as the noises grow in volume and become more desperate, “they’d enjoy that.”  
They wait until the coupling has finished. Then they make their way down, emerging from the shadows of the trees together, mirroring their enemy who greets them with calm, self-possessed indifference.  
“Hello, Richard and Melissa,” says Hannibal as though to old friends. “You two have been very, very naughty.” 

As though a signalling shot has been fired into the air, the predators turned prey immediately dart in opposing directions, followed in hot pursuit by Hannibal and Will. The man is of similar stature to Will, and as he chases him deep into the belly of the forest past trees standing and leaping over those fallen, it is accompanied by the surreal sensation of racing his own shadow; at one point, the pursued looks back over his shoulder and Will is convinced he is staring back at himself. They soon find themselves storming onto higher ground and in the back of his mind, Will knows they are nearing the upper perimeters deemed off-limits in prior discussions with Hannibal, yet he cannot successfully steer the other away. Teeth gritted and bared as he sucks in deep lungfuls of bitter forest air, Will pushes on until Richard is almost within arm’s reach. Just as he considers bridging the final distance between them with a leap and tackle, they approach the end of the forest floor far more suddenly than anticipated and Will has to latch onto the low branch of a nearby tree to stop himself following the man as he hurtles off the cliff into the water below. Looking down at the tossing currents, Will curses under his breath as he loses sight of Richard, becomes once more aware of the weight of the piece tucked into his belt and digging into his skin. He turns and hurries back to Hannibal, reaching behind and under his coat for the handle of the gun. 

Will finds them on the ground: Hannibal pinning the female down with his body, chest pressing against her back as he tries to catch the jerking wrists, both sets of eyes trained on the one razor blade flashing white in the dark. His finger twitches against the trigger, but Will does not act. He watches the struggle as though he were observing the forced breeding of two formidable beasts, trying in vain to catch his breath as Hannibal grabs a handful of her hair and pushes her head down into the leaves - breath catching when Hannibal crushes the razor out of her fingers, the blood sluicing down his palm to stain the cuffs of his shirt. He looks up then, stares darkly at Will with quiet pain and adrenaline, mouth agape with shallow breaths that matches her own. A keening sound slips past her lips, stirring the delicate strands of hair attached to their plush, moist surfaces; Will feels it taking hold of him, choking the voice from his throat, drawing him a step at a time to her arousal. Stood before them, Will can see her arching her back low and pushing up at Hannibal simultaneously, sees her swipe at her lips with her tongue as her eyes lift to meet his, defiant, daring him. _Go on. You want it _. This was it. No longer a roleplay in the safe boundaries of his mind. He finally had her where he wanted, where they wanted. Will licks his lips, head tilting as his mouth opens wordlessly, his eyes unfocused.  
“Will,” says Hannibal, voice low and steady, drawing the other’s gaze to him, “remember what it is you want.” The solidity of the words sink like an anchor through the core of his being, and Will unfixes himself from the spot, pulls the penknife from his back pocket, bends one knee upon the ground. Against Melissa’s renewed struggling, Hannibal tightens his grip around her cool, slippery tresses, pulls her head up and back to bare her throat the same time the blade is flicked into sight and brought down clean. __

By the time they return to the house, the skies have lightened to the first hues of blue, under which all evidence of injury no longer looks as black. Hannibal carries the body, wrapped head to toe in a blanket, through the threshold. The sight strikes Will as a macabre parody of newlywed tradition.  
“Why don't you get yourself cleaned up,” says Hannibal on his way to the kitchen. Will closes the front door, shutting out the first eager chirping of early morning. He wants to press his brow against the firm wood and hold onto the solid brass handle as he gradually breathes the rattling out of his nerves. After a long pause, when his breathing has returned more or less to normal, he is suddenly aware of a bereft sensation pooling into his chest even while his bloody fingertips continue to twitch with spasmodic energy in the aftermath. He feels eyes on him and turns around from the door to see Hannibal studying him from the kitchen threshold.  
"Have a shower," he says insistingly, eyes watching him closely until, acquiescing under the grounding stare, Will heads toward the staircase. Without touching the banister, he starts climbing the stairs and removing his coat, dropping it on the landing as he walks into the bathroom unbuttoning his shirt. His hands fall to his belt, smudging tacky red fingerprints against the smooth silver of the buckle as it comes undone with a soft rasp. Pushing down and stepping out of his trousers, he climbs straight into the shower and turns it on. Cold water strikes his still trembling body, and he swallows down a gasp as he braces one hand against the tiles whilst rubbing over his stained face with the other.  


He can taste Melissa in the water rivulets trickling into his gaping mouth. And Hannibal from when he'd grasped the other's slashed hand to pull him up onto his feet. The sensation of the warm and wet gushing from the wound in Hannibal's palm had given Will a strangely lightheaded feeling, and he had tightened his grip instinctively until he saw a twitch in Hannibal's lips. He leans his arms against the tile and presses his face into them as though to hide his intentions. He waits despite knowing each passing second will not only fail to placate, but instead whip his pulse into a slow burning frenzy - until he sees, playing across the blank of closed eyelids, scenes which both torment and bring forth a deep, unspeakable pleasure.  


_Will sees Sophia. She is naked on the bed as Will thrusts into her from behind. He is unable to break from Hannibal’s gaze while the other ruts simultaneously into her mouth. Then she is swiftly replaced by Melissa and they are back in the forest, Hannibal buried in her arching body, Will pulling in and out of her throat, the gleaming sweat on their naked skins illuminated by the moonlight. _  
__

Keeping his eyes squeezed shut, Will bites his arm, squeezing the flesh between his teeth until he feels it build and tear through him with a vengeance.  



	4. Chapter 4

Next morning, Will comes into the kitchen to find Hannibal cooking breakfast. The sight of the other moving around in his half apron and rolled-up shirtsleeves reminds Will this is real; they are really here. What happened yesterday had really happened, and afterwards, he had slept. He had allowed the dog to sleep in his room and found himself almost crushed beneath the animal’s weight. He had opened his eyes to the broken stag, its rack reaching out for him as it had done in the Norman Chapel when he lay prone on the steps, the red fountain pouring forth from its truncated form, an angry tidal wave washing over his face. The memory of the nightmare makes him shudder involuntarily.  
“How would you like your eggs, Will?” Hannibal asks on his way to the refrigerator. Will pauses at the doorway, his stomach doing a flip at the sight of the chrome door swinging open. Hannibal leans back from the fridge, holding an egg in each hand.  
“One or two?” he asks brightly. Infected by the other’s cheer, Will feels a familiar twitch in his face that resembles something close to a smile.  
“One,” he answers, stepping gingerly into the kitchen and adding after a moment, "please." Hannibal drops an avocado which starts to roll away across the floor. The dog runs into the kitchen and hits the stray avocado with its paw; the fruit jumps straight into its open jaws.  
"Didn't think he'd eat avocado," says Will.  
“Especially considering their toxicity to common household pets,” Hannibal muses aloud as he sidesteps flying specks of avocado to put ingredients down on the counter. Will watches the dog as Hannibal opens a cupboard to retrieve a saucepan. “The seed alone can become wedged in the oesophagus, stomach or intestinal tract,” Hannibal adds informatively, straightening up. “It’s humbling to think such a common fruit has the power to cause respiratory distress, fluid accumulation around the heart and lungs, liver and kidney failure, even sudden death.” He turns around and looks down at Will half-wrestling the dog, prying at its pulp-smeared jaws. Hannibal takes a step closer to the tussle, leans down and picks up the shiny brown pit, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger with a droll little smile.  
“But dogs and cats are not affected by persin in the same way as birds.”

It is difficult to see through the mist and with each tug of the leash, Will suspects the dog is leading them unwittingly to their impending doom. Hannibal, on the other hand, strolls at a leisurely pace beside them, carrying the camping chairs and the rest of the fishing gear, head tilted as though it helps him to better appreciate the birdsong.  
“Is it not considered poor taste,” Will grunts as he leans back in his steps to avoid being dragged forwards, “walking the dog over a crime scene?”  
“We prevented one,” answers Hannibal.  
“With our own,” utters Will, eyes trained on the back of the dog's head, preying it doesn’t catch the scent of some woodland creature, “slow down, boy.”  
“Thus may our incestuous siblings continue to frolic in the forest. Ignorance, they say, is bliss.”  
Will glances aside at Hannibal, believes he finds a twinkle in the other’s eyes as he continues to speak. “What a wonderful way to live.” The profiles of the would-be-victims come to Will’s mind: the gentle, doting smile of the older sister paired with the wild devotion of tender youth, a distance of ten years spanning between them, the blood of a shared mother running in tandem through their veins.  
“A questionable perspective,” Will utters, stopping as the dog buries its nose into the carpet of leaves covering the ground.  
“You would question happiness, Will?” Hannibal asks, watching Will curiously.  
“I question the means to happiness,” he answers before being forcibly pulled onwards. Hannibal lowers his gaze with a thoughtful expression and follows after Will.

Having changed into his bib and brace, Will pulls on the matching coat, adjusts the cap on his head and picks up his rod. In front of him, the mist hangs thick and low over the still water of the lake, creating an eeriness broken by the occasional appearance of birds swooping low across its surface. Will looks back over his shoulder at Hannibal, sat with his legs crossed in the camp chair, sketchbook open in his lap. The loop of the leash dangles off the wrist balancing the volume while its twin poises elegantly against the page. The dog is lying at his feet, head down between its paws.  
“You going to be okay with him?” Will asks as the pencil begins to scratch out its first lines.  
“Of course,” Hannibal answers without looking up. The beast glances up at Will and Will glances back.  
“Right,” he grunts before tramping down the sloping bank, taking care not to slip on the slick matt of leaves. He doesn’t need to go too far, dropping in where there is a natural dip in the lake and the water is already relatively deep. Any fish which may have been resting there would have fled at his disturbance. Slowly he begins to wade out a little further, breathing the mist down into his lungs. The current folds around him, holding him steady within its palm as he prepares to cast his line. The quiet babble of the water fills his ears, massages soothingly the edges of his brain while he ties the hook; he had missed this, he realises. Reaching into the pocket of his bib, he pulls out a synthetic bait, recalls doing the same with Abigail stood nearby, asking why they weren’t using live.  
“When you question the means to happiness,” Hannibal cries abruptly from the bank and Will curses as he drops the piece of plastic, “you are referring to the cost?”  
“Yes?” he shouts back. _We’re scaring away the fish _.__  
“What do you consider to be the cost of happiness?” Hannibal continues, voice echoing all around, and Will frowns at the thought of fish swimming collectively in the opposite direction. He is about to say something derogatory when he hears the dog start to bark, the deep and clipped, resonating harshness of each cry echoing in the air around. Turning with a sigh, Will starts wading back the same time a hushed rustling from the distance bursts into a noisy flurry of leaves, heralding the approach of one very excited dog. Above him, the canine's giant black body leaps into view and pounds down the curve of the banks; Hannibal’s stumbling figure appears half a second after, his hair slightly mussed by the breeze, lips cursing in a language Will is not familiar with. Rooted in the water, Will watches dumbly, marvelling at the other’s inability to do anything in the face of one beast’s determination. He opens his mouth and immediately shuts it again when he feels the laughter building dangerously in his chest. The dog jumps into the lake and Will is sure he hears Hannibal curse the once in English before he’s dragged in, trips, and falls straight down into the water. With a great splash, Hannibal resurfaces and is jerked this way and that until he finally manages to free himself from the leash. Panting, he leans over with his hands on his knees, catching his breath.  
“Can't put a price on that," mutters Will as he reels in his line.  
"Death by ravenous pigs or an oversized dog," says Hannibal, dragging aside the hair plastering his eyes.  
"I happen to be neither," says Will, giving the other a cool once-over with lofted eyebrows.  


Will finishes lining the mould with rashers of bacon, making sure they overhang this time. Hannibal steps close with his bowl and spoons the meat mixture over Will’s handy work, pressing down with the back of the spoon. Under Hannibal’s watchful gaze, Will neatly folds the bacon over before covering with baking paper and sealing with tin foil. Hannibal secures the lid with string and picks up the mould, placing it into a roasting pan so Will can pour in the hot water from the kettle until it rises halfway up the sides of the mould. Carefully, Will carries the pan to the oven as Hannibal opens the door and slots it gently into the encompassing heat. Hannibal closes the door and they return to the large ovenproof dish on the hob. Will opens the bottle of red wine passed to him, takes in its richness mingling with the menagerie of aromas filling the space of the kitchen as Hannibal turns up the heat. He pours a generous amount of the bottle’s contents into the dish, flooding the vegetables, meat, and bouquet garni.  
“Now we wait until the liquid has reduced by half,” says Hannibal, “after which we’ll add the veal jus.” Will nods appreciatively before taking a deep swig from the bottle. He catches Hannibal watching him and lowers it.  
“How rude of me,” he says, offering Hannibal the bottle. Hannibal takes it, regarding Will with half-closed eyes that simmer under the kitchen lights as he presses his lips to the glass rim.

Waiting for the food to cook, Will and Hannibal move into the living room. Sat in chairs opposite one another, they keep passing the bottle, the dog's eyes following their to-ing and fro-ing from where it lays quietly between them. Eventually Will tires of this and moves to perch on the arm of Hannibal’s chair. They drink and stare into the fire, then drink until there is none left.  
“Did you cook with Bedelia?” Will asks, holding the empty bottle between his hands, eyes on the label.  
“No, I did not,” Hannibal replies and Will’s gaze travels up to the other’s profile, observes the glowing firelight dancing across a sharp cheekbone, the severe brow, the unyielding line of his lips.  
“Did you cook with your wife?”  
“No,” says Will, his eyes on the fire.  


It has to be said that a lot of time and effort has been put into the preparation and cooking of two relatively simple dishes in a somewhat modest celebration of their first ‘triumph’. Will is aware of Hannibal’s going easy on him, choosing the terrine for himself, a composite of various parts of Melissa, and the perhaps more palatable braised cheeks for Will. The dish Hannibal places carefully before him is clean and minimal: two small pieces of pork cheek sandwiching the even smaller piece of Melissa, each medallion sat atop individual beds of buttery mash in a dark pool of sauce and arranged together in one neat row across the middle of the spotless white plate. The presentation is finished off with a simple sprinkling on top of green and purple watercress.  
“It’s beautiful,” Will says, looking up across the table at Hannibal who smiles, picks up his knife and fork.  
“You have yet to taste it.”  
Will watches Hannibal slice off a tiny corner of his terrine, slice off a slither of spiced pear, then spear the two together on the end of his fork before lifting it to his parting lips, eyes closing as he takes the morsel into his mouth, chews and tastes, pausing to savour. Sinking his own fork into the tender middle cheek, Will lifts it up and waits for the dripping of excess sauce to stop before bringing it close to his mouth. He hesitates before his lips even brush the meat, however, and lowers it back to the plate. He cuts the cheek into an even smaller piece with his knife, fixes it once more on the tip of his fork, aware Hannibal is watching him from across the table. Will exhales, putting down his fork.  
“It looks and smells divine," he says quietly, "but...”  
Hannibal turns his attention back to his own plate. He cuts off another piece of terrine and another piece of pear.  
“You said Walter is afraid to try new dishes,” he murmurs, eyes flickering up to the wine glass before him, “perhaps he learnt that from his father.” Will attempts to find Hannibal's gaze through the distorting glass.  
“You will disapprove of my logic,” he begins to say, pausing to lick his lips, “but this meat is tainted.” Hannibal scoffs scornfully.  
“If I wanted merely to poison you, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time and effort in doing so.”  
“Melissa poisoned herself with her own desires,” Will says quickly, not enjoying the other’s tone, the way Hannibal is refusing to meet his gaze. “I am not comfortable with the thought of consuming that which has been all-consuming,” he continues to reason. “The thought of her flowing in my blood makes me,” he says but then stops himself, not wishing to be crude at the table which has been laid out so meticulously even though it is just the two of them. Hannibal is busying himself with his food, the sound of his cutlery grating faintly against porcelain. Will watches him take his time with each morsel as the lengthening silence begins to weigh heavily upon him.  
“Perhaps the righteous would prefer to dine instead upon the flesh of an innocent child,” Hannibal finally says, pausing with the next forkful before his lips, “or the unblemished flesh of a virgin.”  
Will says nothing, trying once more to meet the other's gaze. A profound silence descends upon the table. Hannibal finishes his meal without another word. They sit like that for a while longer, until their glasses are empty and Will stands to pour himself another from the bottle, and walks over to refill Hannibal’s glass for him. As he walks back to his chair, he hears Hannibal sigh quietly after sipping and swallowing more of the numbing beverage.  
“Let me prepare something else for you,” he says, rising from his chair.  
“Don't trouble yourself,” says Will, but Hannibal is already walking away. Will follows after him, entering the kitchen to see Hannibal rolling up his shirtsleeves once more, his eyes giving the kitchen surfaces a brief survey. Will wants to express his apology, but can find neither the appropriate words nor body language. The damage, it seemed, had already been done.  
“Let me help,” he says instead.  


Will wakes with a pained shout, trembling and frozen to the bone. He wraps his arms around himself, tries to take deep, slow breaths, focusing on the sight of the dog to steady his nerves. His body stings from the phantom knife, his face burns with the memory of another’s blood spraying across its surface, hot and so full of life. His eyes ache under the gaze that had watched down at him, the wrath underneath the indifference silent and searing, the accusation unbearable. Pushing the sodden sheets off his body, Will staggers out of his room and into the main bathroom.

Hannibal had heard the cry, the suddenness of Will’s voice passing through the doors of both their rooms to escape into the silence of his bedroom like a small, wretched animal. He sits up in bed and turns the bedside lamp on, listening to the indistinct thump of footsteps outside on the landing followed by the hushed hiss of water. He waits a moment before leaving the bed, opening the door and walking out towards the sound. The dog is lying across the landing outside of the bathroom, the bulk of his body blocking the way to Will’s room. The bathroom door is ajar, spilling a white streak of light across the animal's glossy black coat, moistening his nose with the first puffs of steam. He lifts his head as Hannibal approaches, accepts the absent stroke to an ear, and puts his head back down between his paws. Pushing the door open, Hannibal steps inside the bathroom. A sweat-darkened tee lays abandoned on the tiled floor and a little further on its way to the shower cubicle, a pair of damp shorts lies discarded to one side. The growing humidity strokes along the skin of Hannibal’s bare chest, seems to beckon him enticingly to its source.

_The being in Will’s fantasy wears a face that shifts fluidly between Sophia and Melissa. It becomes further distorted when he pushes it under the water, the current causing those staring eyes to waver below the surface as they watch up at him. Hair floating like tendrils of seaweed glimmering in the shafts of penetrating sunlight. He waits until the light begins to fade in those eyes, then pulls her face up into the cold. Watches the mouth open with a gasp for air as he snags his fingers in those wet tresses and drags those slack lips onto his bare flesh. He watches the black stag standing between the tree trunks further inland as he ruts. When he nears, he looks down. Those black eyes strike ice into his chest and fire in his belly, and he reaches his climax with something bordering on a feared euphoria. ___

____

With a loud gasp, Will’s eyes snap open and he whips around in the stall. For a moment, he had a feeling someone was in the shower with him. There is nobody else in the bathroom, but his eyes follow the dissipating haze of the steam escaping the open doorway.

He finds Hannibal in the kitchen, stood before the coffee machine, looking starkly human with his bare chest beneath the artificial light. Behind him, the surrounding windows of the kitchen, large and bare, reveal the muted vigour of the night while exposing their transient forms to the scrutiny of the dark. Hannibal begins measuring out coffee beans with automated precision. Will recognises a touch of preoccupation, the sort that Will finds in himself more often than he does in the other. He sits down on a barstool, tucks his bare feet upon the metal bar and suppresses a shudder from the cold. He wonders if Hannibal acknowledges the low temperature and lowers his eyes to the hand resting on the icy black granite, a ruthless instrument in repose. He folds his arms on the granite, the sharpness of the chill cutting through his skin.  
“You’re disappointed," Will says slowly, watching the other gaze into the middle distance, focusing on something Will cannot see.  
“I have no expectations of you, Will,” he says.  
“Don’t you?” he asks, a touch too quick, too defensive.  
“No.”  
“You lie-”  
“But I do believe if Abigail remained alive,” says Hannibal, meeting Will’s stare, “there is the possibility of happiness.” His voice is smooth and void of emotion as he continues. “That is not a lie.”  
Will says nothing.  
“Neither am I speaking untruths when I say I believe you still blame me for taking her away from us while I, in turn, blame you for giving me no choice.”  
Will listens to Hannibal as though his words have poured into a serpent, each syllable a hissing strike across the granite. Shutting his eyes, Will feels the voice prying at the precarious stitching running deep through his being and inseparable from the man stood opposite.  
“You fail to understand you were not the only one who cared for Abigail,” Hannibal says, and Will opens his eyes to meet the other's black stare, “that is the truth.” There is a pause, filled only by the ticking of the clock on the wall. For a moment it feels as though they exist in a vacuum. When Hannibal speaks again, he is unusually quiet, catching Will off guard with his strangely subdued voice:  
“Imagine that. Living without constantly trying to destroy one another." His lidded eyes fall upon Will’s left hand, the sight of which seems to restore the marble coolness to his voice. “You intend to be reunited with your family. You see yourself as a sacrifice made to the beast, placating it with your presence after you failed to destroy it.”  
“That’s not true.”  
“You remain to keep me from harming others unless it suits you, despite it mattering nothing to me whether those we destroy are deserving or not of their deaths. All so that you may continue playing the hero while you long for those who love and miss you. Do I speak an untruth, Will?”  
The silence returns, as does the sound of the clock. Coffee drops smoothly into the cup and Hannibal picks it up but does not drink from it. Will watches the cup and the unfurling steam. At the same time, he feels something uncoiling deep inside.  
"I am here," he says eventually, voice quiet yet firm.  
“Yes,” says Hannibal, turning to face the window. In the glass, Will watches the reflection lift the rim of the cup to sharp lips. Watches himself staring back with sudden resolve as a feeling rises and ebbs in his chest in a strangely comforting manner.  
“I have a dog,” he adds appealingly. Hannibal meets his eye in the reflection.  
“You do.”  



	5. Chapter 5

Less than a week following Melissa's death, a double murder is reported. The location of the crime is a room in a standard motel. The two victims are young, one male, one female. Both had their throats cut. Forensic evidence suggests they were engaging in sexual acts with their murderer up to the point of their demise. It struck Will as a somewhat erratic incident, and Hannibal commented the killer's grief for his dead partner could have fuelled his reckless behaviour. They had been standing side by side in the room, ready to scarper at the first sign of unwanted company which soon drew near as the distant flash of headlights cutting through the dim of morning. The car belonged to a young detective who, accompanied by an officer, was still too green to make links. Driving with a steaming coffee wedged behind the handbrake, and driven half mad with excitement by the scent of death like a pack of hounds kept from a hunt too long. Hannibal had turned his gaze from the blinds back to his partner stood with drawn lids quivering under the trembling of the all-seeing eye, had wondered with a glance at their reflection in the black television screen if the other was wilfully blind to his affinity with these people. 

It’s more often than not a long drive home. Will would fold his arms, let his head loll towards the window and drift off as though it was safer to do so in the car than in his own bed. Hannibal would drive in silence, sometimes with the volume of an aria turned low. Occasionally, he would glance sidelong at Will's neck behind the coat collar, watch the discreet throb of a vein before turning his eyes back on the road.

_Will’s body is on fire. Through the yellow lapping flames, he expects to see the Dragon's face. Molly is beneath him, immune to his inferno. He sees sympathy in her eyes and open mouth. Her hair is fanned out beneath her head in a golden halo, lending her the grace of a sacrifice. They make love as his skin continues to burn without blackening, but just as he is about to come, he feels the sharp edge of a knife stroking cold and fleeting along his throat. He reaches his climax with a strangled gurgling from the gushing gape in his neck, watching his own blood showering Mollie's skin in furious red lashes. She stares up at him in shock, her pale eyelashes fluttering under the spray. ___

____

He wakes up gasping as though he had stopped breathing in his sleep. Running a hand over his face, he swallows against the throbbing in his throat, and is disturbed to find the same sensation further down his body. Hannibal is watching the rolling asphalt ahead, one hand steady on the wheel. Sitting up, Will discovers his shirt is plastered to his back with sweat.  
“There is a cloth in the glove-box,” says Hannibal. Will opens it and sees a white envelope, the paper bulging with its contents. There is nothing written on it and he resists the urge to turn it over, reaching instead for the cloth beside it and shutting the glove-box.  
“Do you miss your family, Will?” Hannibal asks. “Would you open it now, or wait until you are alone?”  
Despite the appealing lilt to Hannibal’s voice, Will knows he is not being encouraged to answer.  
“And after reading, what would you do with it?” Hannibal asks. “Keep it safe under your pillow? Burn it in the fireplace?”  
Although impossible, Will suddenly believes Hannibal had somehow witnessed his burning of the letter in what now feels like years ago.  
"It's not for me,” he answers, turning his eyes on the first splattering of raindrops against the windscreen.

After dinner that evening, Will takes the dog out for a walk. Following the animal's lead, he lets his mind go empty. As he is dragged along, however, the white envelope floats into the dark space of his brain. He is not given long to dwell on the image before the dog catches sight of something and sprints against the leash.

The front door opens and the dog trots in, a dark shadow covered in mud and yellow leaf. His owner, stepping in after, looks less enthused and even more filthy.  
“You look terrible,” says Hannibal from where he stands by the foot of the stairs in his coat, holding a pair of black leather gloves in his hands. Will presses the door to a close behind him and rakes his fingers through his hair, absently combing out any dirt or leafy debris. He is still catching his breath as the first touch of confusion spreads across his face.  
“We’re going out?” he asks, looking up from the gloves. Hannibal turns his attention to the mirror, eyes checking over his lacquered hair.  
“I am paying Alana a visit,” he announces, “you may join me if you wish.” He glances at Will in the mirror. “Though you are not expected to.”  
Leaning down to unclip the dog’s leash, Will hopes he has misheard.  
“Is she expecting your company?” he asks confusedly, straightening up with his hands on his hips, bracing himself.  
“No,” Hannibal answers, turning around with a smile, and Will cannot help the slight narrowing of his eyes. He folds his arms and wets his lips.  
“No,” he echoes lowly, with emphasis, as though he had not heard correctly and needs it repeated.  
“No,” Hannibal repeats. Will watches that smile, senses the barely veiled malevolence under the calm.  
“Why?”  
“It's overdue.”  
“What is.”  
"My visit."  
There is an uncomfortable pause.  
“Are you going to harm her?”  
Hannibal glances aside as though bored by the question. “What difference does that make?” he asks.  
“It makes all the difference,” says Will, making a conscious effort to keep his voice level despite quickly losing patience. Hannibal meets his gaze, his black eyes critical.  
“Have your abilities as an empath begun to wane?” he says slowly, voice cold and disdainful. Will stares back levelly.  
"Not my abilities."  
The familiar void of expression settles in Hannibal’s countenance as he stares across the hallway at Will for a few silent seconds more. Then he walks past Will, pulling on his gloves and grasping the brass handle of the front door. Will resists the urge to try and stop him. He waits until the door has opened and closed behind him and remains standing there as the invading chill of the night breathes down the back of his neck.

Bedelia cannot be sure whether her appetite for wine existed before Hannibal. If it did, it was never this ravenous, growing like an uncontrollable canker ever since she realised her fake ex-husband could return to her. She doesn't know when he will come, only that she will see him again. That, she can be sure of. Reclining in the armchair, her head falls back with a tumble of gold as the wine leaves her limbs feeling light enough to be swept away by a breeze. The doorbell rings. She opens her eyes, waiting for her expected visitor to make their own way in to her home. When the last echo of the bell has finished reverberating around the dimly lit room, she holds still, waiting for a second. After a period of silence, she presses the rim of the glass to her lips, empties a generous amount of its contents into her mouth, and swallows. She sets down the glass and stands, smoothing down her dress. Stepping slowly into the foyer, she strolls towards the entrance, pausing for a moment. She doesn’t need to see to know he is watching. Straightening, she steps up to the door, puts her hand on the handle and opens it.  
“Hello, Bedelia.”  
“Hannibal. Have you come for your person suit?”

Still in his coat, Will sits before the unlit fireplace, hands resting on the stretch of leash across his lap. One after one, the hours had slipped him by. The dog trots into the living room, gives a shake that sends dirt flying in all directions before moving to wedge his body between Will’s legs, head lowering to nose at the twisted rope. Will's hand strokes its head absently, brushes against a tiny leaf. He picks it off the fur, studies the orange-yellow gradient and jagged edges. Eventually he rises from the armchair and heads towards the stairs, followed by the dog. He takes his time climbing the steps and finally finds himself stood in the doorway of Hannibal’s bedroom. The door, as always, has been left open invitingly. Turning on the light, the orderliness of the room is revealed to him without a single speck of dust out of place. He enters with the dog at his heels, walks past the bed to the other side of the room. Approaching the desk and empty chair, he stops in front of the row of drawers on the left. He pauses for a moment before pulling open the top drawer. A dark green journal sits alone inside. He picks up the volume, closes the drawer, and puts the journal down on the desk. Opening the cover, he turns the pages until he comes across the name VERGER written in Hannibal’s scrawl. Below it is a number.

When Alana stirs, it is not from the tickling of Margot’s hair or the soft breath that leaves the slightly parted lips resting close to her neck. It is a sensation that raises the tiny hairs on the skin and quickens the beating of the heart, otherwise known as the paranoid premonition of the hunted. The prey living in constant fear of a predator. Gently slipping from beneath Margot’s arm, Alana climbs out of bed, the marble floor icy against the soles of her feet. Instinct pulls her in the direction of their son’s room past the wide staircase across the landing. Here, the large, bare window running most of the length of the opposing wall reveals the gradients of pending daybreak: a deep purple melting into increasingly muted hues before merging with the faintest of pinks and exploding into a streak of orange, the unexpected vibrancy a foretelling of the sun’s inevitable approach. Nearing the bedroom, she stops when she sees the door is ajar, holds her breath when she hears the hushed voice of their child in conversation. She should have taken the gun from the bedside table. She could go back for it now, but the desire to protect, to retrieve, makes her step forward, one hand pushing open the door. Slowly the edge swings back to reveal their boy, stood in the middle of the room with his back to her, his brown hair tousled from sleep. His arms are extended as he offers his stuffed bear to his new acquaintance, his visitor in the night. The curtains are drawn, the room is dark, yet Alana knows that form well, and would see him as clear as day even if she were blind. Even if she could never understand what she was looking at.  
“Hannibal,” she says in quiet greeting, drawing the attention of the child. She extends a hand from her side and he goes to her, dragging the bear after. The shadow slowly stands, eyes glinting in the gloom.  
“Hello, Alana,” the voice returns, low and hushed, the accent familiar. “You don’t look surprised to see me.”  
Alana pets the hair of her son as he wraps his arms around her leg, presses his cheek against the soft satin of her pyjamas and watches their visitor from the corner of his eye.  
“All things considered,” she says, not trusting herself to blink lest the other made any sudden movements, “not anymore.”  
Hannibal tilts his head enough to look past Alana’s shoulder.  
“I see you live perpetually within the earshot of armed men,” he observes without sympathy.  
“It is not ideal,” she says plainly, lifting her chin just enough to demonstrate her calm against all odds. "Why are you here, Hannibal."  
“A promise,” he answers simply, and she feels him watching the child like a twisting knife in her stomach.  
“You’ve come to kill me,” she says, equally as simply, "and the child." Her eyes harden defensively at the mention of what is to be protected at all costs.  
“The boy lacks a father figure,” Hannibal comments from the dark, matter-of-fact.  
“Words fail to describe the feeling when I imagine you as a father,” Alana breathes, barely able to conceal her contempt and, despite everything she has been through and conquered in these past years haunted by the very man stood opposite, the lingering fear. She can feel her son's weight leaning against her leg as he begins to fall asleep. Without breaking eye contact with Hannibal, Alana leans down and picks him up. “He doesn’t belong to you, Hannibal," she hisses in a voice that is hushed yet vehement.  
"You all belong to me," he says imperiously, as though correcting a common misunderstanding.  
"Perhaps you have mistaken trapping for having," she says cuttingly. "Be careful, Hannibal. You back a wolf into a corner and you may live to regret it."  
A voice from the landing steals their attention. Hannibal breaks eye contact to look past Alana's shoulder.  
“Hello, Margot."  
Stunned silence follows. Hannibal walks towards Alana who backs onto the landing with the sleeping child in her arms. Behind her, Margot is frozen to the spot, her arms wrapped tight around herself, her hands clutching white-knuckled at the silk of her dressing gown. Without stepping any further in the family's direction, Hannibal turns and begins descending the stairs. Alana follows him with her eyes, her mouth a tight line as her son breathes against her neck. She does not notice Margot had slipped back to the bedroom until her reemergence a second later, her bare feet thudding dully against the marble of the landing.  
"No," Alana cries in protest as Margot stands in front of her, shielding both Alana and their son with herself as she pulls the trigger on the pistol. The sound wakes the child. Alana stares as the bullet punctures the back of Hannibal's coat, stopping him mid-step. He turns around as though they had merely thrown a stone at him, seemingly unperturbed by the rapidly spreading shadow beneath his coat. Blood drips onto cold white marble.  
"Careful, Margot," says Hannibal, voice unchanged as he presses a hand to his shoulder, "you're not setting a very good example."

It has been almost two days since Hannibal left the house. During this time, Will investigated two murders which turned out to be unrelated to their killer. Back and forth, the yellow ticker continued to reveal the facts of the crimes without answering questions such as how long before Hannibal was to return, or why he even felt the need to leave in the first place. In the evenings, Will found his eyes straying to the front door as he stood at the kitchen doorway drying a mug, a bowl, a plate. As he heads home after a long walk, Will is preparing himself for another evening alone when the dog begins to pull excitedly at the leash. _What is it, boy? An intruder? _Pulse quickening, Will reaches inside his coat for the firearm as he slowly climbs the steps of the porch. When he opens the door, he sees Hannibal stood across from him. He is wearing a black shirt with its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, hands in the pockets of his trousers. His hair is not lacquered and falls in soft spikes across his eyes.__  
“Hello, Will."  
“Hannibal.”  
Eyes not leaving Hannibal, Will crouches to unclip the dog's leash and send him on his way into another room with a gentle push from his hand. Straightening up, he stands there watching the other.  
"We have a new family member," says Hannibal brightly. Will finds his amusement distasteful and cannot help frowning.  
“Who?” he has to ask, as much as he does not want to.  
"He didn’t seem keen at first, but appears to have settled.”  
“Did you kill them,” Will asks bluntly, not enjoying the look of condescending amusement in the other's eyes.  
"Who?"  
“Alana and Margot.”  
“Did I kill Alana and Margot?” Hannibal repeats the question monotonously, any hint of mirth from before having vanished. His eyes, black and unreadable, stare at Will with an intensity that dares the latter to look away. “I had neither Chiyoh nor Abigail," he continues to say, "and you, Will, on the other end of the line." The briefest of pauses to accentuate the coldness beginning to seep into his syllables. "Just like old times."  
"Was it not what you expected?" Will retorts, sarcasm slipping into his own voice.  
"Not expect."  
"No, of course. You were just curious."  
A pause as both attempts to stare the other down.  
“Where is he?” Will asks.  
"In your room," he says simply. "If he's not to your liking, he can be removed."  
Will is speechless, all patience having drained from his person to be replaced by growing anger. Hannibal continues to watch him with indifference. It makes Will curl his hands into fists at his sides.  
"You've reached a new low," he says dangerously, eyes narrowing, "even for you."  
"I believed so when I found myself at the bottom of the sea."  
"Maybe that's where I should have left you," says Will, pacing towards Hannibal, invading his personal space until they are close enough to feel the other's breath on their face.  
“What stopped you?”  
Will grabs Hannibal by the front of his shirt and smacks the hard ridge of his fist into his cheekbone. Hannibal retaliates by swinging his own fist forward to catch the bridge of Will's nose. Like stags locking antlers in a fight, they grab handfuls of shirt and hair in their attempt to overpower one another. Pushing with their weights against the other as though they are a barrier to overcome, until someone brings the other crashing down to the floor and their strife for dominance resumes at ground level. Soon, the skin over knuckles have split, as well as the soft skin of the lips where contact was made. Tiny red rivulets decorate sweating faces at the bridge of a nose, an eyebrow, a cheekbone. Finally, Will has pinned Hannibal beneath him and is laying blow after blow across his face until Hannibal catches his wrists to stop the assault. At no point did they break eye contact since the fight began and now they continue to glare at one another as though the sheer malice of their gazes alone should be enough to tear the other apart. As they struggle once more to overpower one another's grasp, Will sees the dull sheen in Hannibal's shirt, a large dark stain that has spread from the area of his shoulder. Hannibal takes advantage of the distraction to dislodge him with a sharp jerk of his knee into Will's stomach. Falling over to the side, Will braces his hands against the floor as he gasps for air. In his peripheral vision, Hannibal is slowly rolling off his back and dragging himself up. Will turns his face to see the stain is worse at the back of Hannibal's shirt and for a moment, the memory of his recent nightmares return to placate some of the anger-driven adrenaline still coursing through his veins.  
"You're injured," he grunts, pushing up from the floor to a staggered stand. Without responding, Hannibal makes his way towards the stairs and begins to climb them with a heavy step. Suddenly remembering he has someone waiting for him in his room, Will staggers hurriedly after him, doggedly overtaking Hannibal as they reach the landing.

Heart beginning to hammer inside his chest, Will stops outside the door of his bedroom. He takes a breath before putting his hand on the handle and pushing open the door. The light from the landing cuts a yellow rectangle across the floor and lower part of the bed which stands empty and undisturbed. Slowly he walks around the bed. The dog is laying in the space between the bed and the wall. Something else is laying between the dog's body and the bottom of the bed. Stepping close, Will lowers himself into a squat. Reaches out his hand to run it tentatively along a sleek black hide, as though he were touching an extension of the dog's body. When the identical head is raised, Will can see clearly that he is looking at two dogs of the same breed, and releases a breath he didn't realise he had been holding.

Two days pass and the door to Hannibal's room remains closed. The smell of coffee is absent from the morning, together with the sight of Hannibal preparing lunch in the afternoon and the quiet sound of music drifting out from Hannibal's room in the evening. The kitchen looks void of purpose without the presence of industrious hands and an artful eye. On the morning of the third day, Will finds himself stood before the door to Hannibal's room.  
"Hannibal," he says, as though he could be right there on the other side of the door, "can we talk."  
No response.  
"Hannibal," he says again, louder this time, and listens for the rustle of bed sheets, or the scraping of a chair leg against wood. The soft thud of approaching footsteps. The house is silent. Without saying anything else, Will opens the door. The curtains are drawn, admitting white light into the room. Hannibal's bed is immaculate. Will steps inside and looks towards the far end where the desk is sat with chair and books and lamp. He stands there watching the dust particles revealed by the glare of the morning sun, dancing together in their millions.


	6. Chapter 6

Hannibal is sitting with his legs stretched out before him on the settee, propped up by cushions. The afternoon sun filters in through the veil drawn across the surrounding glass windows, bathing the room in a gentle gold and casting its forgiving warmth across bare skin and a bullet wound lying exposed to breathe. She watches him turn his face to the side, eyes closed and lips slightly parted as though he is inhaling the calm of the hour, grounding himself in the familiar security of her home. Quietly, she crosses the room, sits down on one of the armchairs across from him. Somewhere in the distance on the other side of the windows, a bird can be heard singing its little heart out. Bedelia leans back in the chair, observing the man sat before her.  
“It is as though we had never left,” she says, her smooth, hushed voice inviting nostalgia. Hannibal’s eyes open just enough to regard her, and she gazes back into hooded orbs flashing black and gold whenever the head tilts between a bar of light and the comforting shadow.  
“Once more you return to me like the wounded beast you have become.”  
A faint smile lifts the corners of Hannibal’s lips as he lowers his eyes.  
“Are you going to put me out of my misery?”  
“No,” she answers, “but I do believe someone will.” The smile fades and the eyes look up.  
“Until then, you seem content to wallow in your misgivings,” she continues to say, “adding salt to injury as though you wish you had drowned.”  
“Would it have made you happy?” he asks, “knowing I will never again appear at your door.” She tilts her head at Hannibal, face growing soft with a small smile.  
“I’d imagine many would feel a great sense of relief,” she replies, “which is why I am surprised they let you walk away.” Hannibal does not seem interested in responding to this comment. His eyes look past her to the painting hung on the wall.  
“They always knew to expect me,” he says plainly, “just not when.” Bedelia observes the other’s countenance, laid bare and open to her like a dissected specimen under the curious scalpel.  
“Were you surprised?” she asks. “That he warned them.”  
“No,” he answers simply without continuing. Bedelia drops her gaze onto the hands clasped together in Hannibal’s lap. The pyjama slacks cover his legs now as they did when he sauntered through the protective dimness of the apartment, stopping every now and then at a square of light to watch down at the streets of Florence. Those few seconds of exposure before he turned away a calling out to the one thing supposed to placate that restlessness stretching inside his breast like a languishing animal. It drove Bedelia half mad, watching him pace so.  
“Now that you finally have what you wanted in your hands, has the appeal of what you once ached for now begun to wane?”  
Hannibal looks down at his clasped hands.  
“When the maker brought humanity to be,” he says, “he accepted his creation with unconditional love. When his creation committed acts against his wishes, he accepted their behaviour with compassion.”  
“Compassion can be inconvenient,” she says shrewdly, and Hannibal smiles, lifting his eyes to rest upon her face.  
“Holding the fire, he listens to their pleas for forgiveness, and in this moment of hesitation, he is no longer what he once was,” she continues for him, “his creation senses its advantage, believes itself stronger, a changed entity.” She stops and waits. Seconds pass in silence; the bird which sang so beautifully has now left its perch. When it is clear Hannibal does not wish to comment, Bedelia tilts her head, lofts her eyebrows in a show of understanding.  
“Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God,” she says. “Will you crush the bird that sings too loudly.”  
Dark eyes stare into her, pulling at the thread that once was tied, testing the yoke that once was shared, albeit one grew tired of bearing that which was not theirs to bear – the sickly symptoms of that disease called love.  
“A bird that bathes itself in blood when there is no water, is still a bird,” he answers. “The plumage underneath does not change.”  
“Perhaps you can teach it to stay away from water,” Bedelia murmurs with an amused half-smile.  
“Not all creatures wish to be taught.”  
“No,” she agrees, lifting her chin and giving the other a knowing look, “and if it cannot be taught.” Hannibal returns her smile, yet it fails to quite reach his eyes. 

He wakes to the sensation of a hard edge digging into his ribs. Lifting his head from the stairs, he looks up towards the light he'd left on in Hannibal's room. His mouth and throat feel as dry as parchment. His body is burning and sweating profusely. Under his coat, his saturated clothes cling to his skin like a deadweight, reminding him of the sea. Dragging himself up to a stand, he puts a hand over his eyes as the throbbing in his temples intensifies, and pulls his feet up the remaining steps, steadied by his hand on the banister. He is glad the dog doesn't jump on him in greeting when he reaches the landing. He wouldn't have been strong enough to withstand his weight and could've easily fallen backwards down the stairs. He is exhausted.  


Following the dog into Hannibal's room, Will sits down on the end of the bed. The twin has crammed itself into the space beneath the desk at the other end of the room, its black hide blending him almost seamlessly into shadow were it not for the warm glow of the lamp light softening the contours of its long face. It lays with its head on the Persian rug between its paws, ignoring any of Will's attempts to draw its attention.  
"Are you angry at me too?" he murmurs. One beady eye appears to look his way and Will smiles tiredly.  
"I'll take that as a yes."  
Still in his coat and shoes, Will lies down on his side. As the fatigue settles in his limbs, his eyelids begin to grow heavy. The beast beneath the desk begins to morph and take on the form of the Wendigo.  
"Where have you gone?" he sighs, eyes slipping to a close.

During Hannibal's absence, Will keeps having a recurring dream, but the setting of which varies. Sometimes he can hear the crunch of white gravel. Other times, it is the click of shoes on grey cobble. In one version of the dream, he will see imposing Roman columns of a Georgian façade while in another, Gothic arches and sinister gargoyles. The details in the beginning of the dream changed, but the end is always the same. Hannibal is making his leave from the estate. He is descending a flight of stone steps or pacing his way past an ornate, spraying fountain. Ahead of him in the distance is a tall iron gate. Immaculate green lawn surrounds him on either side. Occasionally, the lawn would instead be red and yellow with fallen leaves. Hannibal's face is blank when the shot is fired. As he falls, a guard stands from his crouched position on the rooftop. When it is not the guard, it is Alana stood at the top of the stone steps, or Margot in the doorway. Now and again, he would see both of them stood before their house, their hair blowing in the breeze the same as Hannibal's does over unblinking eyes as he lays there on the ground.

Will wakes. His breathing is steady, yet his chest feels fit to burst. He does not think he can bear waking in this manner for much longer, the subsequent panic so strangely subdued and unable to find release. Recently, he has found it difficult waking up to the silence of the house, as though without the sound of his own screaming ringing in his ears, he cannot be sure whether this room he finds himself in is truly there – or if it is, he finds it difficult to accept his companion has really left. At first he thought nothing of it. Was confident one evening, he would come back to the sound of music floating down from upstairs, the familiar light falling across the landing from the doorway of Hannibal’s room. And then the man himself would venture out, stand at the top of the stairs and watch down at him with his hands in the pockets of his dressing gown. Whenever he went down to the kitchen in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, he would half expect to find him hidden behind the open door of the fridge. In the mornings, he sniffed the air for coffee – in the afternoon, he waited for Hannibal to come through the doors with grocery bags in his arms and more coffee for the machine. As the days rolled on, he found himself doing everything a little bit quicker – opening the front door after a long day of fruitless investigation and going straight to the foot of the stairs, bypassing the bathroom upon waking to hurry down to the kitchen. After the first week, he started to make his way steadily through Hannibal’s wine, the evenings finding him sunk in an armchair before the fire, glass in hand. Now and then he would drink too much and fall asleep, waking up to the dog's rough tongue and hot breath on his face; the other beast preferred to ignore him, mostly, as though it blamed him. One evening, stood on the porch, it came to him that Hannibal had left indefinitely, and for the rest of the night, he drank what came into sight, repeating until he was sick and spent. The following day, he suffered the most horrific hangover, but came to a decision nevertheless. As soon as the headache and nausea had resided, he resumed investigations into their escaped killer, barely stopping to eat or relieve his bladder. This continued for days until the sneezing and coughing started, followed by the sudden blowing from hot to cold and vice versa. Pulling the collar of his coat a little higher, Will continued doing what he had to do regardless.

But there is something that he must do today. Stood in the kitchen with his hands on his hips, Will watches the dog and his twin polishing their bowls. Rubbing a hand against his jaw, he considers his options. One at a time, or together at once? In the bath tub, or the shower stall? Would they fit? Would he need to use a hose? Would there be enough soap for the two of them? Mulling these questions over in his head, Will leaves the dogs to their breakfast and climbs the stairs, trying to remember how many spare towels are in the house. Walking into his bedroom, he checks all the drawers and the closet but cannot find any. Crossing the landing, he goes into Hannibal’s room, squinting against the brightness of the morning light. He makes his way towards the walk-in wardrobe tucked into the far corner of the room, glancing at the desk and empty chair en route. Turning on the light, Will steps onto carpeted floor and gives the area a quick scan, eyes skimming the rows of suits and waistcoats hanging pristine in their various patterns and hues, the sets of polished shoes tucked neatly into their slots making up the bottom of the open wardrobe, the small assortment of suitcases and briefcases tucked upon the top shelves. He paces the relatively modest space, idly stepping close to an open organiser. Pulling out the drawer, he gives the colourful contents a brief once-over as though inspecting different species of insect - starts to count the paisley ones before growing restless and moving on. He stops before a tuxedo hung upon the edge of a shelf, recognises it as his own and picks it up to find Hannibal’s underneath. He leans in and takes a sniff near the lapel, drawn by the lingering citrus and sandalwood to take a second, deeper inhale, the tip of his nose touching satin. The evening of dim chandelier lighting and dark intentions returns to him. The distant sound of paws clattering upon the stairs stirs him from his thoughts. He hangs his suit back over the other and walks out.

Opening the door, he lets himself silently into the house. A noise from above draws his attention to the top of the stairs while he shuts the door behind him with a quiet click. As he walks on into the kitchen, he hears a muffled shout, followed by the noisy clambering of animal paws sprinting across the landing and down the staircase. As he starts to remove his coat, one dog bounds into sight past the threshold followed by its twin, their black hides dripping and slick with suds. He steps back as they slip and slide their way towards him, grunting when both animals leap simultaneously and knock him instantly off his feet. Pushing firmly against slobbering jaws, he sits up and struggles to keep both animals at bay. Amidst the palaver and the great, hulking bodies of the dogs, he sees a familiar face staring down at him from the doorway. His dark hair looks more unkempt than the last time he’d seen him; his complexion is pale, the eyes a little wild and red-rimmed with purplish shadows hanging beneath.  
“Hannibal,” he utters as though he’d seen a ghost. Slowly, Hannibal gets up from the floor, brushing himself off.  
“Hello, Will.”


	7. Chapter 7

Will stands there, staring as though he cannot be sure whether the figure in front of him is a mere apparition his own mind has willed into being. He is half afraid the other will disappear if he blinked, leaving him to stand alone in the kitchen like he has done in the seamless sequence of days and nights gone by. Those hours had been long, yet now he wishes for time to slow down to an even slower crawl, keep this moment as it is. His mind reassures him that what he sees cannot be imagination alone - the dogs haven’t been this excited in a while, and he watches them continue to harass Hannibal, rubbing their large bodies against his legs, not giving him a minute’s rest.  
“And what is your name?” Hannibal asks as he lays a hand upon the head of the more docile of the two dogs – the one who had spent its days with Will in the manner of a hostage weighed down by its own resignation. Suddenly feeling weary, Will lowers himself into a squat, holding onto his own arms as his first dog turns back to him.  
“He doesn’t have one,” he says, gripping and rubbing the animal's heavy head between his hands while watching the other dog sit statue still at Hannibal’s feet. He can’t help wondering what Hannibal has that he lacks – perhaps the other smells better, which is fair enough. He suddenly thinks of Hannibal’s unmade bed and used bedsheets, stale with the sweat that had poured off his feverish back the night before. Maybe he could offer him his own bed, which has been practically unslept in. Hannibal lowers himself until they are mirroring one another across the kitchen floor, squatting with the long bodies of the dogs between them.  
“You should call him Tomas,” says Hannibal thoughtfully, smiling down at the passive muzzle pressing into his palm, “the twin.”  
“Call him anything you want,” Will sighs, leaning back heavily on his hands and sitting down against the tile, “he doesn’t seem to like me much.” Hooded eyes flit up to observe Will past the sleek curves of drying black hides, appears to look at him properly for the first time since his return.  
“You’re not well,” Hannibal says quietly, his dark eyes tracing over Will’s face once more, slower this time, lingering like the press of fingertips under his eyes, the crest of a cheekbone, a stroke that stirs curled strands of his hair as it skims across his brow. “You should rest.” Drawing up into a stand, Hannibal walks towards him, the dog trotting out of his way as he stops in front of Will’s bare feet. His shoes are polished and shiny under the kitchen lighting. Looking up, Will takes in the neat, lacquered hair, the crisp collar of his shirt, the subtle check of a suit he has not seen before. The tie, however, is still paisley; he cannot explain why, but the sight of that pattern comforts him. When Hannibal extends his hand, Will clasps it without hesitation, his grip tight and clammy, letting the other help pull him onto his feet. Blood rushes to his head, making the kitchen whirl around him. Vaguely, he feels the touch of fingertips on his jaw, steadying him for a short moment under the doctor’s gaze before letting go again.  
“Get yourself to bed,” instructs Hannibal, “I’ll bring you some water.” 

Unbuttoning and removing his suit jacket, Hannibal lays it across the breakfast bar before moving to get a glass from the cupboard, Tomas following at his heels.  
“Did you miss me?” he asks with a smile, glancing down at the animal as he moves to the sink which is as spotless as he’d last seen it. Either Will has been keeping up with the housework or he has not been using the kitchen, he thinks to himself. He lets the water run for a few seconds before catching it with the glass, eyes watching the level as it rises its way up to the top. “Did he miss me?” he also asks, turning off the tap, “or were you too busy pining to notice?” Turning, he watches down at the dog who watches back up at him, its beady black eyes unblinking.

Lifting the cover, Will climbs into bed, sits himself down and looks at the lamp on the bedside table. As he reaches over to turn it on, Hannibal flicks off the light from where he stands at the doorway and the room suddenly glows a subdued yellow, softening the sharp edges of Hannibal’s countenance. Tomas appears at the doorway, watching Will from Hannibal’s side. Will leans forward, patting the cover encouragingly.  
“Come here, boy,” he says softly, “come on.” When Tomas sits himself down next to Hannibal’s feet, Will leans back against the headboard, sighing in defeat.  
“He hates me,” he mutters, regarding the animal with lidded eyes. Hannibal comes further into the room.  
“He has his preferences,” he says as he approaches the bedside table. Will watches him put down the glass of water before lifting his gaze to hooded eyes.  
“How is your shoulder?” he asks, picking up the glass. Hannibal slips his hands into the pockets of his trousers, gaze falling on the sheets covering Will’s legs.  
“I have the occasional pain,” he answers. Will nods thoughtfully, lifts the glass to his mouth and sips, licking his lips after. He swallows hard before saying, “no permanent damage then.”  
“There was no major structural or vascular damage,” replies Hannibal plainly, “I was very fortunate or more liked by Margot than she herself would admit.”  
Questions hover on the tip of his tongue, but he takes a deep gulp of water. _I’ve had countless recurring nightmares where you’re shot dead by the Vergers. ___  
“Get some rest,” says Hannibal, turning to go, “I’ll bring more water soon.” Will lowers the glass and hesitates. He speaks up just before the other is out of the room entirely.  
“I’m sorry,” he says, louder than intended. Hannibal stops with his back to Will, hands still in his pockets. Growing uncomfortable with the curtness of what has been said, Will adds,“there's dog hair in your bed.”  
Hannibal remains still for a moment.  
“I’ll leave the door open,” he says. Will watches Hannibal walk out, watches Tomas get up from where he’d been laying near the door to follow after.

In contrast to the crisp cleanliness of the last bed sheets he'd slept in, Hannibal finds himself lying on a bed that lingers with the scent of stale sweat and dog. Once more he is breathing in the essence of Will Graham and dwelling on that perpetual twitchiness paired with unconditional love for man’s best friend. Will’s voice slips across the landing and through the open doorway of his room. Hands clasped over his stomach, he lays there listening to the hushed tones as they vary between struggle and relief, stretching from a disgruntled low bass to whimpering at an octave higher than usual. It is a familiar collection of sounds that Hannibal cannot get enough of, the same vibrating of taut vocal cords struck during the infliction of pain or euphoria, or both at the same time. 

He wakes in panic, heart pounding in his ears, mouth as dry as ash. The room is dark. Through the open doorway, the landing is also dark, with the faintest trace of light beginning to emerge, signalling the early hours before daybreak in the deepest shade of blue. He becomes convinced the yellow lamp light he’d watched and drifted off to just a second ago had been a dream, cannot trust his eyes when it reappears, slicing through the black of the floor beyond the threshold from the room opposite. Squeezing shut his eyes, he pants as the hard palpitations rattle his ribs, as every inch of his body aches under a fitful bout of shivering that he cannot seem to shake. He wants to roll onto his side, but lacks the strength to. Something stirs his hair, slips over the pouring surface of his brow. Head jerking involuntarily, he cannot be sure if he is imagining this, too, and dares not open his eyes lest he meets the stare of the Wendigo, of Abigail and the fountain gushing forth from her slit throat. He lets himself be pulled up into a sit, is vaguely aware of the bare shoulder beneath his cheek as his tee is peeled from his back, pulled over his head and tugged down his arms. Thinks for a moment that he’s standing back in the kitchen, mistakes the sweat rolling off his body for the blood tumbling out of his gut onto the floor between their feet. His hands scrabble for a soiled shirt that isn’t there, fingers digging into skin, face twisting in memory of the agony. When he is pressed down onto his back, his eyes slip open to see a shadow leaning over him, half in likeness to the one who has haunted his dreams, half-obscured by the dim, and the pain of waking and returning to an empty house washes over him anew, makes him cry out feebly and shut his eyes. 

Drawing back the curtains, Hannibal turns his face momentarily from the brightness bursting through the window, eyes closing against the cool white light stroking along his cheek. Having adjusted to the glare, he looks out across the scattering of bare tree tops through a blinding veil of snow. Tying the rope of his dressing gown, he leaves the window and the bedroom, moving soundlessly down the staircase to the kitchen. Once he has the coffee machine going, he opens the cupboard where the animal feed is kept, squatting down to read the instructions on the backs of bright packaging before depositing what he considers to be the correct amount into the dogs’ dishes. He empties the water bowls, rinses them out thoroughly before refilling with fresh water from the tap. Setting them back down beside the food, he fetches a new glass, fills that with water too before pacing purposefully out of the kitchen with it and back up the stairs, Tomas brushing past the bottom of his dressing gown on his way down. Coming into the other’s room, Hannibal is greeted by the first dog who immediately gets up from his sentry position in front of the bed and starts sniffing around him before darting off for his breakfast. Drawing closer to the bedside table, Hannibal glances down at the neutral expression on Will’s face, the hair raked over thrice by fitful tossing and turning, the line of his lips still and unbroken in delayed repose. Struck by desire to disturb that fragile and hard-won calm, Hannibal pauses.

He moves his hand over Will's mouth, fingers hovering a millimetre from contact. His breath is warm against his skin. Small and weak. With a sudden ferocity, Hannibal wants to crush it out with his hand and feel the throb of retaliation. Stare into wild blue eyes that can see through him to a core misshapen by the heat of another’s molten loathing, remoulded in parts by the manipulations of an infuriatingly compatible and yet incompatible mind. _In this moment of hesitation, he is no longer what he once was. ___

____

The scent of coffee in the air brings him back to the pressing productivity of the morning, and he snatches his hand away, puts down the new glass and picks up the used before walking out of the room.

Remembering his last experience with the dog on the other end of the leash, Hannibal is doubtful a walk with both beasts will end well. However, if he refuses to take them out, he suspects they will only continue to move restlessly to and fro before the front door, rear up on their huge hind legs to paw at the window panes, faces pressing and slobbering against the glass – just the thought of the latter alone is enough to fill him with vexation, which is why if it was left to him, he would do without beasts in the house entirely. Watching the lumbering twosome bump against one another in their perpetual pacing, Hannibal finishes his coffee and decides he will have to get dressed. Find clothes he wouldn’t mind ruining, which is an odd concept to him. Perhaps he could have a look in Will’s wardrobe. 

Having buttoned up his heavy winter coat and hung the scarf around his neck, he starts pulling on his gloves but stops when a thought comes to him. Leaving the dogs waiting at the door, he climbs the stairs and goes into his room. Walking to the desk, he finds a piece of paper, picks up a pen. Afterwards, he walks out and across to Will’s room, puts the paper down beside the glass on the bedside table before going back downstairs. Clipping the leashes, Hannibal opens the front door, nostrils barely given the chance to flare under the biting cold before the dogs rush past him, united in curiosity if not character to drag their leader outside into the snow. 

Through the white stream of his breath, he can see the black dots of the dogs’ bodies dashing and leaping upon the field in the distance. Birds are singing noisily in the bare trees around him, the morning sun gleaming off their plumage moistened by flecks of melting ice. He imagines Will playing out there with the dogs, a green and brown dot with a smaller blue dot on top, and idly contemplates the full range of men’s headwear, wondering if he would be able to persuade the other to replace that hideous knitted thing. Content in his easy musings, he is mostly unprepared when a voice interrupts his thoughts, low and quiet, yet jarring nonetheless with the deep, resounding barks of the dogs.  
“Is it nice to be home?”  
Hannibal blinks, turns around slowly with the coiled hoop of both leashes between his hands. The unexpected and bedraggled appearance of the man, together with his coal-black curls and glassy green stare lend him a certain likeness to Will. Lowering his gaze upon the other’s person, Hannibal observes the compulsive twitching of a bare left hand countering the confidence of the right as it clasps the handle of a knife, recognises the same restless disposition of a predator holding itself back. Hannibal’s eyes slip to a half-close.  
“I like your coat,” he says amiably with a tilt to his head.  
“I like yours,” the man returns monotonously, his breath spiralling past his lips as he speaks.  
“It keeps me warm.”  
“Do you know what keeps me warm?”  
“Tell me.”  
“The thought of your blood spraying your partner’s face,” says the voice expressionlessly, far from threatening and yet nothing but. Holding the other’s gaze, Hannibal smiles charmingly, just enough to stir another spark within those staring eyes.  
“I daresay such thoughts keep him warm, too,” he murmurs amusedly before his lips fall back into line, ruthless and calculating, “as does, I’m sure, the memory of your partner’s blood doing the same.”  
“I will create new memories for him,” the man says, unfazed, “right now.”  
With a flash from his blade, he lunges at Hannibal, and in the distance they can hear the sound of the dogs barking as though in warning. 

Sidestepping the slashing edge of the knife, Hannibal watches the other’s arm, waiting for an opening. The other is light and fast on his feet, and does not allow himself to become distracted from his primary target even when they hear the muted pounding of paws down the field. Knowing there is no way of keeping the beasts at bay, Hannibal keeps his lips pressed together as he backs from another strike, making sure to stay clear of trees. With a great furore of barking, both dogs leap without hesitation between Hannibal and the man, forcing the latter back. Moving to the side, Hannibal attempts to stop the other’s arm with the lassoing clutch of a leash, but misses. Just as the man finds a gap between the dogs’ bodies and propels himself forward, one of them leaps up, taking the hit with a whimper. The blade pulls out from glossy hide made the glossier by the gush of blood, spraying the white and brown sludge of the ground as it shakes itself clean before raising once more. The injured dog – Hannibal cannot be sure which it is – attracts the attention of its mate, which comes helplessly to its side.

Rounding their large bodies, the man gains an unobstructed path to Hannibal and his feet begin to pick up pace. As he nears, Hannibal attempts once more to evade the knife, but a quick change of angle and direction lands a cut in the forearm he lifts to shield his face. It is not deep enough to cause major damage, but heat instantly floods beneath the sleeve of his coat to drip free from the tear in the fabric. He manages to throw the remaining leash over the other’s forearm, but cannot constrict it fast enough with his hands before the attacker drags the blade hard against the leather as it pulls taut, cutting himself free. Hannibal’s back collides with the trunk of a tree as the man hurls himself at him, the commotion of their struggling bodies knocking snow from the branches above, although neither appears to notice the chill of watery ice as it slips its way down the crest of a cheekbone, catches in the furrow of a brow contorted with effort. With the dog’s renewed barking reverberating off the trees, both men reach a near standstill in their struggle against the other, Hannibal catching at arms which push and pin him back against the bark. The edge of the knife draws dangerously close to his throat.  
“I will take you to your front door,” the man grits through his teeth, his gaze unfaltering past the edges of the knife, “wait for him to answer.” Hannibal says nothing as he pushes back against the tree to steady himself, chin lifting slowly. “Return you and take you away,” he adds, green eyes flashing.  
“Did you love her?” Hannibal asks, voice calm. As expected, the expression on the man’s face differs, and it is a pain that Hannibal recognises, can remember as a clear reflection in another’s wide, staring eyes. He jerks back from Hannibal’s grip to come at him again with renewed force, and Hannibal waits for the dart before trapping his arm with both of his. But the man will not release the weapon from his hand, no matter how many times it is knocked against the trunk. Hannibal resorts to thrusting his knee up into the other’s groin. The knife drops. The man is tackled down onto the ground. More struggling ensues, the dog keeping its distance as Hannibal catches the other’s head in an arm lock. Something in the snow catches his eye, and he releases his grip to seize it. At the same time, his opponent drags himself forward to snatch the knife. One of the dogs leap on top of him. Before Hannibal is able to pull the animal back, the man rolls over, braves the snapping jaws to run the blade through the thick black throat. Caught in the moment, he realises his mistake too late, and struggles to pull free from the deadweight pinning him to the frozen ground. Just as he is about to, Hannibal looms back into view. Green eyes stare up at the large rock being lifted into the air between gloved hands before it is brought down upon his head. 

Opening the front door, he leans against the doorframe, catching his breath for a second before continuing to drag the other’s unconscious body into the house, not stopping until he has reached the kitchen. Dropping the man against the tiled floor, he goes to the cupboard beneath the sink, opens the doors to find the rope. The surviving dog slinks silently up to Hannibal's side, leans heavily against him.  
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, grabbing the thickly bundled cord from the back, “I will go back for him.” The dog whimpers at his promise and slumps upon the ground. Hannibal pauses, watching down at the blood beginning to pool towards his shoes. His hand slips under the beast’s chest in search of the wound, feels the heavy labouring of a great heart against his palm. He does not hear the feet creeping towards him from behind. Does not hear the wine bottle as it is brought up high and then down upon his skull.


	8. Chapter 8

Will wakes to strange sounds coming from downstairs. Filled with a sudden dread, he drags himself out of bed, tee and shorts sticking to him like a second skin. As he staggers out onto the landing, the noise becomes louder and he recognises Hannibal’s voice – no words, just sounds: guttural and abortive. He hurries down the stairs, missing a step near the bottom and stumbling, but does not stop until he’s at the threshold of the kitchen. Immediately his eyes fall upon the two figures struggling on the ground. The one straddling the other is hunched over with his back to Will, and he doesn’t need to see the face to know who it is – he had chased that same coat, that shadow of himself, off a cliff edge once before. Will also doesn’t need to see Hannibal’s face to recognise his twitching long legs and polished shoes slipping against the tile. Beyond the men, the dog lies under the sink in a shallow pool of blood that seeps and spreads along the grout. Muzzle down, his eyes turn to Will from across the kitchen, but he is too weak to greet his owner with anything beyond a silent plea for relief, the depths of his black gaze shining still. Without further thought, Will runs at the one he has been hunting, his bare feet thudding against the kitchen tiles. Throwing his chest against the dampness of the coat, he wraps his arms around the neck and head, using his own bodyweight as leverage to pull the man back. 

With the man caught in Will’s headlock, Hannibal takes advantage of the distraction to wrench the neck of the broken bottle free from the other’s hand and slide it clean out of the way. Losing their weapon, the killer’s hands fly up instinctively to claw at Will’s arms, and Hannibal pushes up, grabbing onto Will’s arms also as he stares past one pair of wild eyes into those he remembers well from one exalted moon-lit moment. He tugs enough for Will to understand and slide his arms upwards, limbs constricting tight around the upper part of the killer’s head, momentarily blinding him as Hannibal seizes the collars of his coat, tugs that neck close at the same time he brings his face forward. His teeth closes around soft, warm skin which he tugs free with a vicious jerk of his head. The man cries out in pain, but Hannibal does not savage him as he did the Dragon, invigorated as he is by the taste, by the sensation of flesh flapping against his bottom lip. He sees Will staring down at him past the other’s shoulder and spits the piece of skin to one side before licking his lips. He sees Will swallow compulsively. 

Releasing his hold on the killer’s head, Will grabs his upper arms, feels his partner working with him from below to turn their victim around between their bodies. The kitchen fills with their erratic breaths combined. Hannibal pins the man against his own body, snares a handful of black curls before yanking the head back to bare a neck that has already started to stream. Will gazes down at Hannibal with heavy-lidded eyes, lips parted, body twitching all over from a fever both old and new. Hannibal gazes up at him, enraptured, panting hard, his left eye a flutter as it blinks back the blood streaming down slowly from a gash in his scalp. Undeterred by the fierce scrabbling of the man’s hands, and with those black eyes watching him, Will lunges forward, snapping at their victim’s throat, tearing into muscle with his teeth as the body spasms under their hands and more sounds of pain pour out helplessly around their heads. Clasping Hannibal’s hand under his own, Will tugs down on their combined grip on the other’s hair before burying his face deeper into the arch of his neck. Incensed, he gnashes like an animal. Until he severs a vein. Until blood sprays hot and metallic across his face. Until the groan has reduced to violently viscous gurgling. 

As soon as the deed is done, both Will and Hannibal sag against the ground as though drained of their strength, each trying to catch their breath. Their killer rolls down to the side and lies there on his back, clutching at his throat as he drowns in his own blood. Each watches the other across the struggling body, chest heaving, palate whetted, that inexplicable bond strengthened beyond control.

Hannibal wants to stand and offer Will his hand, but finds he cannot bring himself to move under the other’s stare - so fraught, so beguiling, stirring such a chaos of emotions within his breast and making him believe he could once more bare himself, offer up that malformed core of his being, let that jealously guarded hope for a true mending be expressed. 

There is no cliff edge here. If he goes to Hannibal now, there will be nothing to fall into but themselves. He doesn’t know what that means, but right here, right now, he believes he is willing to find out. Believes Hannibal could be, too. 

He feels so utterly weak, he cannot bear it. Will not bear it. Pulling himself together and up onto his feet, Hannibal turns his attention to the dog. He steps around the dying man towards it, snatching his clean half apron from the oven handle on passing. He looks back at Will who is staring blankly at the wall and calls his name. Blue eyes appear to stir from their stupor, looking over at him.  
“Come and comfort him while I get a few things together,” says Hannibal, holding up the apron he has folded into a thick square, “press this tight against the wound.” Getting up, Will wordlessly follows his instruction and they pass each other by in the middle of the kitchen, Will on his way to the dog, Hannibal to his bathroom for gauze and other necessities. 

When Hannibal returns, having shed his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves, their killer is dead and Will is still pressing the apron against the dog’s chest. He goes quickly to their side, kneeling down with his arm full of items that he lets fall with a quiet clatter upon the tile. Picking up one of the cotton tees he’d taken from Will’s room, he folds it over a few times before giving it to the other to press over the red square of his apron.  
“Give it five minutes,” he murmurs, “keep applying pressure until the bleeding stops.” He feels eyes on his face, and busies himself with folding the remaining garments, ready to be used.  
“Your head,” Will says.  
“It’s fine,” says Hannibal, “the bleeding has mostly stopped.”  
“What happened?”  
“I took the dogs out for a walk. He found me.”  
There is a pause and Hannibal knows Will is looking around the kitchen, then past the doorway.  
“Where is Tomas?”  
“Still out there,” Hannibal says softly, “I will go back for him soon.”  
“Was he badly hurt?”  
“Yes. But his pain ended quickly.”  
Another pause of understanding. He glances up, watches the other rub the blood from an eye with his free hand, then run the same across his face.  
“I’ve spent some time hunting him,” Will exhales, fingers rubbing absently at his jaw, “and it turns out he was hunting you.” He swallows before laughing, the sound leaving him as a short-lived, mirthless gasp for air. “He did a better job than me,” he adds before falling quiet. Hannibal moves to sit more comfortably against the hard floor, taking care not to rest the soles of his shoes in the dog’s blood. He folds his arms across the tops of his knees, watches the labouring of the animal’s chest.  
“You knew where to look for me once.”  
“I did.”  
Hannibal turns his face, watching blue eyes lifting to a memory of Florence, perhaps the same memory that Hannibal is reliving now – the holy chambers of the Norman Chapel, superimposed upon the domestic lines of the kitchen.  
“You made sure of that,” Will says without emotion, “just like how you made sure I wouldn’t know where to start.”  
Hannibal turns his eyes back on the dog.  
“Has the bleeding stopped?” he asks. Will lowers his gaze to the square of familiar grey, only a small spot of colour having managed to seep through and which maintains its size for the time being.  
“I think so.”  
“Good.”

Having cleaned and bandaged over the dog's wound, they carry him carefully into the living room between them. They light a fire for him in the fireplace, make sure he is as comfortable as he can be. Will conceals a buffered aspirin in a treat - anything to help ease the animal’s pain. Then they return to the kitchen, white floor succumbing to red. Specks of the same hue can be found scattered across various cupboard doors and chrome bars. Stood side by side, Will and Hannibal watch down at their man. When Hannibal does not show initiative, Will steps forward.  
“Come on,” he grunts, getting down to hook his arms under the corpse’s and glancing up at the other, “we wouldn’t want the meat to spoil.”  
Hannibal looks thoughtful as he takes his position at the opposing end of the body.  
“I could teach you about the proper ways of handling meat post slaughter if you wish,” he says, lifting the same time Will does.  
“Maybe later.” 

The artificial light of the ensuite is too glaringly bright. It illuminates the edges of the gash in Hannibal’s scalp, the true depth of the cut, as well as every strand of matted hair.  
“Sit still,” Will snaps irritably, pausing to wipe the sweat out of his eyes.  
“I am sitting still,” says Hannibal calmly from his perch on the lid of the toilet.  
“You’re swaying because you’ve lost blood,” says Will, “because you insisted on patching up the dog before seeing to yourself.”  
“That should earn me brownie points,” says Hannibal.  
Will squeezes shut his eyes for a few seconds before opening them again and giving his head a brief shake.  
“What am I doing?”  
“A running interlocking stitch.”  
A pause.  
“Do you know what that is?”  
“I think I’ve done it before on my dogs.”  
“You think.”  
“The only thing I’m not so good at helping my dogs with is poison.”  
For a moment, neither says anything more. Hannibal lets Will make a mess of the suturing for a further few seconds before reaching up for the needle, their bloody fingertips brushing together briefly, warm and tacky.  
“The mirror, please,” Hannibal requests politely, and standing up before the mirrored doors of the cabinet with Will holding up the extra mirror to help him better see the wound, he closes up the laceration with not much more than a grimace. Then he washes his hands, plugs the sink, and turns the tap on to fill it with warm water.  
“You should shower,” he says while checking his own reflection in the mirror.  
“So,” Will drawls, seeming more his usual self for a moment, even whilst wearing someone else’s blood, or perhaps because of the very fact that he is, “I should just go ahead and get undressed in front of you?”  
“Removing one's garments is what most people tend to do before showering,” replies Hannibal as he scoops up the water with his hands and bends down to wash the blood off his face.

Once Hannibal has left the bathroom, Will turns on the shower and steps under the spray, watching the water sluice its way down his body, the droplets of diluted blood dripping off his chin and the ends of his hair to fall and slip through the plug hole. Closing his eyes, he lifts his face, lips parting under the liquid heat. 

Stepping out from the hazy humidity of the ensuite into the coolness of Hannibal’s bedroom, Will finds a change of tee and shorts left upon fresh satin sheets. He paces towards the changed bed, would readily collapse naked against its silken surfaces and leave it up to the other to deal with his useless body long after he’d fallen asleep. He hopes he will be able to. Now that he has used up the adrenaline, he is once more aware of the uncomfortable hot flashes, the aching in his muscles. Looking across the room, he sees Tomas lying under Hannibal’s desk, imagines that graceful body lying so large and black against the snow. Believes the dog must have sustained his critical injury while trying to protect its owner. Towelling himself off and pulling on his clothes, he goes downstairs, suddenly wondering what would have happened if he hadn’t woken up. If Hannibal was left to struggle on his own from a disadvantaged position. Moving to stand at the threshold of the kitchen, Will observes the glimmering fluid collected in the grout between the tiles, the large part of the kitchen floor reminding him of a fisherman’s net - stained with the blood of a haul that carelessly combines the intended and unintended alike. A couple of hours ago, he had moved from the same spot to launch himself at the offender without knowing how close the man was to overpowering Hannibal. He didn’t know, for instance, that the weapon was a wine bottle – the one he had recently opened to get him through the night and left on the side. Didn’t know how close the glass was to Hannibal’s throat. If anything had happened, he does not want to speculate the ways in which he would punish their killer for his audacity, be left to comprehend existence with only half of himself remaining. He hears Hannibal’s voice drifting towards him from the living room, low and hushed. He is speaking to the dog in Lithuanian and yet it sounds familiar. Alive.

The sound of smashing glass materialises from nowhere, makes the dog twitch nervously beneath his hand. Hannibal gets up quickly and walks in the direction of the kitchen, hoping Will has not collapsed and hurt himself. Arriving at the doorway, he finds Will stood facing him with one hand on the breakfast bar, the other hanging absently by his side. His eyes are downcast, gazing past the newly broken bottle lying on the floor in front of him. Hannibal permits a quiet sigh to escape through his nose.  
“At this rate, I shall have no wine left,” he says amusedly, watching the sharp pieces of glass lying near bare feet. Glancing up at Will’s face, he finds unmoving lips and eyes which could be lost in the stream, in the myriad of montages spun by that unfathomable mind, seeing anything and everything but the man stood opposite him. Slowly, he walks into the kitchen across from the other, observing the faint twitching beginning in that thinly clothed body, the exhausted, half-drawn eyes. For a split-second, Hannibal sees Will pick up the neck of the bottle, hears him mutter a quiet apology before he moves, driven to fulfil what their killer could not, and walking away, if successful, without deliberation. Simply doing what Will feels he must do. And if not exactly an apology, Hannibal wonders what Will’s final words to him would be. Wonders, too, why he cannot seem to decide between two likely scenarios: stay and watch Will die, or die watching Will leave. He is not sure when such thoughts started to cause him pain, but sincerely hopes it will not have to come to either possibility tonight.  
“You should sit down, Will,” he says quietly. Nothing happens for a few seconds – the mechanism within the clock continues its motion in silence. Time does not wait. Will turns and looks at him as though he has just made his presence known, chin lifted so that he may gaze down at Hannibal through heavy-lidded eyes half possessed. Like an automaton, he steps over the glass and walks slowly across the tiles, treading on the thin rivulets of blood seeping its way across the floor. As the other draws close, Hannibal gradually retreats, allows himself to be backed against the fridge, his eyes unwavering as they return the stare. He does not turn his face away when Will comes close enough for his breath to be felt exhaling warmly against his mouth, does not balk when fingers thrust through his hair near the tender flesh of his wound, and snatches tight.

He pushes Hannibal down, finds the other thrillingly compliant and unresisting, even when he is finally forced into a sit upon the cold kitchen floor, his back pinned to the chrome door of the fridge. He sinks to his knees, straddling Hannibal between them. His fingers splay against Hannibal’s scalp and pushes down harder. Hannibal allows himself to be manoeuvred without protest, his hands sliding down to brace against the tile on either side of him, and when Will pulls his erection from his shorts, hooded eyes regard his flesh without expression. Gripping himself at the base, he traces the side of the other’s jaw with the damp head of his penis, moves up to press its blunt tip into the corner of those thin lips, feels a sharp tingle of excitement needling through him at the risk of teeth attached to a cannibal’s mandible. To the skull of Hannibal Lecter. The perfect specimen of sensuous human cruelty. At this moment in time, he pays no heed to those words of warning in the back of his mind - he is accepting the other for what he is and is now leaving it up to Hannibal to decide whether or not to accept Will’s intentions. From corner to corner, he strokes the other’s mouth with the head of his cock, fixating on the sheen left by a smeared bead of pre-cum, another seeping out in replacement when those lips part. With a suppressed groan, he braces his arms against the fridge, presses his face into them as he feels himself being enveloped, feels himself pushing close to the back of Hannibal’s throat which promises to stroke him with every tight swallow of building saliva if he dared to push deeper. Instinctively his hips begin to pull out only to push back in, thrusting slowly at first into that gripping heat, then faster, harder, sometimes knocking the back of the other’s head against the metal of the appliance, sometimes making Hannibal gag, but moving consistently with selfish purpose. He looks down with his sweating brow pressed against his forearm, chest heaving from his shallow breaths, to watch Hannibal’s face, fixate on those closed eyes which he half desires, half fears to force open. With the exception of his mouth, no other part of Hannibal touches his body, and Will stops staring at Hannibal’s hand as it braces against the floor, squeezes shut his eyes as he swallows hard, not ready to read whatever could be lurking behind those hooded lids. He feels a vague sense of shame mingled with disappointment, rising fast and unexpectedly to foil his need for release. But those lips, that tongue, the glide of his saliva is all too much, and when Will feels himself about to come, he pulls out of Hannibal’s mouth last minute to ejaculate against the cold surface of the fridge, panic tainting the overwhelming albeit transient bolts of pleasure jolting through him. 

As he catches his breath, he pulls himself shakily to his feet, vaguely aware of making himself decent as he turns from Hannibal and staggers out of the kitchen. He makes it as far as the stairs and his body is grateful when it is eventually helped up and steadied against another’s weight, warm and smelling faintly of blood and aftershave as it guides him to his room. Hannibal throws back the cover on the bed and pushes Will down before pulling it up over him. Will's eyes fall on the piece of paper laying on the bedside table, reads the scrawled message: 

_Will,  
_

_Walking the dogs.  
_

_Hannibal.  
_

Will looks up from the note at Hannibal stood at the door, his hand on the handle.  
“I will check on the dog overnight,” he says. Will continues to watch him. Eventually, Hannibal breaks eye contact to begin pulling the door closed.  
“You could have died,” says Will. Hannibal pauses. He studies Will with his black eyes.  
“Perhaps.”  
“But you didn't.”  
“No.”  
There is a long pause.  
“Feel better, Will,” says Hannibal before closing the door. Will turns his eyes to the ceiling and lets them drift to a close.  
_Never felt better. ___


	9. Chapter 9

_In the dream, Will straddles Hannibal, his bare feet slipping against the tiles, his lips parted to his heavy breathing - his tongue swiping across the slick edges of his front teeth. The blood of their killer streams from his mouth, drips off his chin, runs in rivulets down his throat, and yet he feels parched as he stares down into that face void of emotion. Gripping the front of Hannibal’s coat, Will pulls to lift the other’s head off the floor, reeling him in until they are close enough for their breaths to mingle, hot and fast. Close enough for him to open his mouth wide and lave with the flat of his tongue at the river of blood flowing down past the brow, the corner of a hooded eye, the sharp crest of a cheekbone. Lap the skin clean as his nose skims up the side of Hannibal’s face, hunting down the gaping mouth of a wound and burying into cool, soft tresses. The more he tastes, the more he thirsts, and he sinks his teeth into Hannibal’s scalp. Tears through skin. Cracks through bone. Feels Hannibal seep onto his tongue and tastes himself. ___

____

“He could do with replenishing his blood count,” says Hannibal before taking another sip of coffee. Will nods in agreement.  
“Plenty of iron-rich foods,” he adds and Will pauses, sensing the tone of suggestion.  
“We could get him something from the butcher’s,” he says. “Liver should do it.” 

Rooting around in the paper bag, Will digs his hand down deeper and pulls out an apple. He takes the bottom corner of his denim shirt and gives the fruit a quick rub before lifting it to his lips. They have stopped by a small local farm because Hannibal has become friendly with the old couple who run it and claims to prefer their meat over the butcher’s counter. Through the windscreen of the car, the wooden fencing surrounding the field looks old and neglected. It wouldn’t take much to sort out, he muses idly. From here, the farm seems a nice size for two people. Plenty of space for a dog to run around. Plenty of things to mend and straighten, nail and hammer back into place. There’s probably a nice little kitchen somewhere with shelves full of homemade preserves. Hannibal would no doubt enjoy making his own jams. Just not with fruit.

Will slips another buffered aspirin into the liver even though Duke is no longer giving off signs of distress - just in case. They wait until he finishes eating before unravelling the bandaging to flush out the wound a second time. Patting Duke dry with a towel, Will applies a harmless but ill-tasting substance around the opening, and they stay with him until he falls asleep, then Hannibal rises from the armchair and asks Will if he feels well enough to go out again. It is time to bring Tomas home. 

Hannibal lets Will choose where to bury Tomas. At first, he thought about the empty space beside the shed which was often in shadow because it reminded him of how Tomas used to spend all his time lying beneath Hannibal’s desk. Then he decides they should put him somewhere they often look upon, so they can be reminded of his bravery. Taking their shovels to the space outside the kitchen, they start digging a hole in front of the young tree growing on its own in the middle of the grass. The earth is frozen and it takes some effort to loosen the soil.  
“I’m glad you are no longer unwell, Will,” says Hannibal as he positions the edge of the shovel and stomps down on it sharply with his foot. Will does the same on the opposing side, wriggling the handle up and down before lifting up a hill of soil and depositing it to the side. “You need to take better care of yourself,” he adds, and Will takes a deep breath, drawing the bitter cold air down into his lungs.  
“I’ll remember to take a break next time,” he exhales in a white stream, eyes on the dent they’ve made in the ground.  
“You overworked yourself.”  
“I couldn’t stop,” he grunts, ramming his shovel deeper.  
“Did you miss me that much?”  
“How was your vacation?” Will asks quickly, tossing soil a touch too hard so it misses the pile.  
“It was nice,” replies Hannibal, also dropping soil onto the pile, “albeit a little lonely at times.”  
“I’d get the violin, but there’s the chance I’ll smash it over your head,” Will utters flatly, eyes downcast as he observes the network of tiny white roots crisscrossing all over brown, the pale body of a worm burrowing in fright.  
“Perhaps the business of percussion would suit you better,” says Hannibal nonchalantly, “all that hitting, scraping, rubbing by hand, striking against another instrument.” The sound of metal slicing through soil rings in the air around them, sharp and uneven.  
“A rather fitting description of our sex life,” adds Hannibal brightly, “if we had one.” Will says nothing for a long time while the sound of digging continues, one end louder than the other, neither attempting to work in tandem. Eventually he stops, panting softly from his exertion, his breath escaping his lips in a flurry of white puffs. He pushes the edge of the woollen hat back from his eyes, licks his lips before speaking.  
“Could you maybe not,” he slowly begins to say, then hesitates, lips parted, eyes lifting to watch Hannibal standing opposite him, one foot on the shovel. _Could you maybe not walk out on me like that again? _It has started to snow and the icy breeze is stirring through strands of combed-back hair, making hooded eyes blink as they look up and across the hole at him.__  
“Where is your sense of humour, Will?” Hannibal chuckles amusedly. _You know what I mean, Hannibal. ___  
“Yeah, well, warn me beforehand, at the very least,” Will drawls loudly, dismissive of his own request, his eyes falling on the crumbling heap at the end of his shovel.  
“A warning would spoil the joke, would it not?”  
The tool falls still in his hands. The silence tells him Hannibal has also stopped digging. Somewhere above them, a bird cries out. Will wonders if the other is thinking of the same phone call all that time ago, and yet he can still hear Hannibal’s voice travelling down the line as clear as if he had the receiver pressed to his ear right now.  
“Still left me smiling against my will,” he says slowly, voice low and sarcastic, not at all bitter as he tightens his grip on the handle before falling back to it. The sound of his shovel resuming its work is joined by Hannibal’s.  
“The best jokes are always the cruellest.”  
Will has nothing to say, so continues to dig.  
“Some would say the same about love.”  
He resists the instinct to look up.  
“No prior warnings,” Will mumbles to himself.  
“Most times, just the one will suffice,” says Hannibal quietly, his voice obscured by the sound of digging.

Between them, they carefully lower Tomas’s body into the grave and begin the task of filling in the hole. They work in silence, watching the dog’s black hide disappearing gradually from view, one patch of earth and snow at a time. By the time they have finished, the garden is covered with a fine dusting of white powder, and the chill has bitten their noses, cheeks, and fingertips pink.  
“I was thinking of going on a vacation,” says Hannibal, his hands clasped together upon the handle of the shovel.  
“Another one?” Will asks, interrupting with a grimace he couldn’t suppress in time.  
“Yes,” Hannibal answers mildly, face blank. “Would you like to join me?”  
Every part of him suddenly aches, both the muscles and something that runs a little deeper. He squints through the falling snow at the other.  
“Sure,” he answers, “why not.” He licks his lips, tastes the ruthless cold. “Will we be working?”  
“Will you remember to take breaks?” asks Hannibal pleasantly.  
Will shrugs, feels his face breaking into something between a smile and a frown, a confusion of withholding and reciprocating all at once through the veil of ice. Then Hannibal smiles and he smiles back without thinking and this seems to be enough for the other.  
“Why not,” says Hannibal, lifting his shovel and beginning to walk back to the house. Will watches him go for a moment before picking up his shovel and following after.

Will wakes to the sound of the phone ringing. His head is pounding already from all the drinking earlier that evening. He wasn't even sure what they were drinking to. Anything and everything, it seemed. An unspoken celebration of survival. In remembrance of Tomas. Because they felt like it. He had eventually passed out at the foot of Hannibal's bed which he now pushes against to stand up.

Grabbing the receiver of the phone, he pulls it to his ear and swallows drily before speaking.  
“Hello?”  
“Hello, Will,” says the voice, and he squeezes shut his eyes, pinching the sides of his head with his free hand in the attempt to gather his thoughts together. “May I speak with Hannibal, please.”  
He looks over at the bed to see Hannibal getting up, one hand pressed to his brow. The lamp is still on, but Will can see first light appearing between the gap in the curtains - that creeping, elusive blue.  
“Bedelia?” he asks with a frown before Hannibal approaches the desk and he pauses, watching the other’s sleepy expression, the tousled hair sticking upright on one side of his head before slowly handing over the receiver. Hooded eyes watch down at it for a moment before he takes the receiver and lifts it to his ear.  
“Hello?” he says, voice low and a little rough, his accent heavy.  
Will folds his arms, waiting uneasily at Hannibal’s side.  
“Not at all,” Hannibal murmurs, no expression as of yet appearing upon his face to give Will an indication as to what this is about. There is a pause as the other end speaks, after which Hannibal responds without hesitation:  
“Of course.” Another pause. “I believe so.” Then another, and Hannibal is watching Will who watches back restlessly. “I will come now,” he says and waits for a further second before putting down the receiver with a soft click.  
“Where are we going?” Will asks immediately and Hannibal says nothing for a second, as though he is weighing up his options.  
“I don't expect-”  
“Where are we going,” he asks again. Hannibal watches him closely.  
“We’re going to get Bedelia.”


	10. Chapter 10

Bedelia puts the cell phone into the palm of his outstretched hand. Clad in black, his figure is largely nondescript in the navy gloom of the acoustics rooms. His face, however, is luminous, its pallor glowing like a white mask hovering above her in the dim. She lifts her chin and stares up curiously into moist, doe-like eyes which contrast with the ruggedness of a dark beard and moustache.  
“Have we met before?” she asks, eyes lidding in thought. He sits down on the armchair opposite from her, rests the side of the pistol upon his thigh.   
“You don’t recognise me,” he says, voice low but soft. There is a slightly muffled quality to his pronunciation which makes it sound as though he is humming when he speaks, lends him a deceptive gentleness. He reclines slowly against the furniture, eyes inspecting the four corners of the room, the gesture of which begins to help Bedelia place this man in her memory – those same large eyes lying open and restless with the confusion of inexperience and haunted by the desire for greater things. Not so different to many of her other clients, she had believed at the time. She apologises for not remembering his name.   
“I don’t expect you to,” he says with a shake of his head before settling to observe her closely, those vigilant eyes blinking slow, as though succumbing to a sudden onset of weariness. “I knew the first time I stepped into your therapy that you would be of help to me.” He smiles, and Bedelia smiles back.  
“Yet you left before we could begin,” she says with a tilt to her head. She can remember his face clearly now: clean-shaven and pinched with a rage that was all the more beguiling for its innocence. “You were an angry young man then,” she adds.  
“Not much has changed.”  
He watches her steadily, and she watches back, unperturbed by the firearm keeping her subdued, the sight of it quietly menacing despite the civility with which it is wielded.  
“Has the object of your anger changed?” she asks.  
“Yes,” he answers, eyes lowering upon the cold piece in his lap, his finger stroking the trigger, “they cut off his head and two more took its place.”

Stepping out onto the porch, Will shuts the door behind him and exhales a wild white flurry into the darkness of the hour. Sat upon the snow, the sleek black body of the car awaits him like a living, breathing animal; steam spews relentlessly from the exhaust, billowing into the frozen air and distorting the angry red eyes of the brake lights. Tugging up the collar of his coat, he hurries down the steps and strides through the falling snow towards the vehicle.

It is with a certain dangerous beauty that nature invades, sending countless shards of ice to fall from the heavens - hurling like salmon against the current of the night as each separate entity collides with the glass of a windscreen. Will watches the wiper blades whipping back and forth, catching and dropping snow with the same rhythm of a fishing rod caught in the flow of good fortune. It is the opposite which smoulders in the confined space of the car. Glancing sidelong at Hannibal, he wonders if the other is aware of the same sense of foreboding hanging heavy in the air. Hooded eyes stare into the black distance, half-lidded in private contemplation or entranced by the silent chaos of the snow, Will cannot be sure. Eyes drifting down along the severe cut of a cheekbone, they linger upon the generous line of narrow lips pressed quietly together and exuding a calm certainty that Will would gladly absorb into himself. And beneath them, those sharp, uneven ivory edges. Slick and abrasive. Withheld from sinking into aching flesh as it pulsates against that slippery, sophisticated palate, and in its pushing, stroking, rubbing, prevents air from entering that tight passage of the throat. The same enveloping darkness that has swallowed countless measures of man in all their various portions.   
“Are you familiar with the Hydra,” Hannibal asks, voice quiet yet loud against the silence passing between them.  
“The serpentine beast with many heads,” Will answers, dragging his eyes back to the windscreen. “Cut one off, another two takes its place.”  
“The concept of regeneration arrived with Euripides,” says Hannibal. “Previous to his interpretation, most were at least in concurrence that the beast possessed many a head.”  
Will hums in thought, folding his arms.  
“You think we’re facing a Hydra?” he asks.  
“Mankind is a Hydra of sorts,” answers Hannibal with a hint of distaste, “and our killers simply a specialised strain. According to Greek mythology, Eurystheus sent Heracles to slay the Hydra, for only a hero could triumph over such a relentless symbol of hopelessness.”  
“Are we the heroes?” Will asks, voice low and uncertain.   
“Good and evil are relative concepts,” says Hannibal lightly, “but it appears this time Bedelia is forced to play the role of damsel in distress.”  
Will makes a doubtful noise.  
“And you the knight in shining armour,” he adds, tone flat with barely veiled sarcasm.  
“You can be the trusty steed,” suggests Hannibal thoughtfully.  
“Trust me,” Will mutters, “you would not enjoy the ride.”  
Hannibal says nothing in response, and when Will looks over, he can see that smile teasing at the other’s mouth again - familiar yet unfailingly provocative. His gloved hands remain on the wheel, his half-drawn eyes on the long and winding road leading them back to the hunting ground with its once-vibrant leaves of red and gold turned faded, brittle husks, encased all as one by the hard, impenetrable shell of ice. Upon this galvanised paperweight of earth, blood would run its course, seeping through feathered, microscopic shards - a glimmering black beneath the brutal glare of the moon. 

The chill of the night crunches beneath their shoes like the bones of small animals as they walk deeper into the forest. If not for the moonlight, they would have struggled to see where they were going. Even so, they would have continued striding through the dark, shoulders brushing blindly, legs pacing in parallel, their white exhales blooming and dissipating in union – the latter of which plays through the air now as they move together but apart, faces exposed by the cold white light.   
“So they’ve been watching us all this time?” Will murmurs, hands in the pockets of his coat.  
“There is a Chinese proverb that often comes to my mind,” says Hannibal, eyes lifting to the naked treetops. “It involves a praying mantis approaching an unsuspecting cricket.”  
“The sparrow watches and waits for him to attack before catching both prey together in its beak,” Will interrupts. Hannibal makes a thoughtful sound. They continue walking in silence for a few minutes more. The early breeze picks up abruptly, makes Will dip his chin further towards his chest, the sides of his face taking shelter from the frigid temperature behind the collars of his coat.  
“Why Bedelia?” he asks, brow contorting.   
“It would appear that Richard has been playing the role of the mantis,” answers Hannibal, “unfortunately for him, the cricket and his friend were stronger.” Will glances aside at him, squinting despite the clarity with which he can view the other’s countenance, if not interpret entirely with confidence.   
“You were at Bedelia’s,” he says in realisation, swallowing quietly against the sudden ripple of discomfort beneath his sternum and looking away. Wetting his lips, he pauses before adding, “she saw to your shoulder.” The image of Bedelia’s hands diligently wrapping Hannibal in gauze, her blond hair glowing like a cold halo in the afternoon light, superimposes itself across the forest floor, lingers stubbornly behind closed eyelids.  
“Did the sight of the wound remind you of your own?” Hannibal asks, ignoring Will’s observation. He opens his eyes and gazes into the middle distance, sees Hannibal lying back on the covers, his face turned to the side, hooded eyes closed - sees his own hands clutching the edges of the unbuttoned shirt. He suddenly wishes there were clouds in the sky to obscure some of this light.   
“Do you find it pleasurable,” Hannibal continues to murmur amusedly, “undressing others on the pretext of care.”   
“No,” he denies lowly, hesitates, then continues flatly, “I wasn’t sure if you were hiding other-” Before he can finish, Will becomes aware of a faint whistling in the air followed immediately by the sudden explosion of pain in his right leg; crying out in surprise, he lurches forward as Hannibal’s hand darts out to grab his left arm, steadying him. Looking down, he finds a narrow black shaft with coloured fletching protruding from his twitching thigh, the head of which has torn through the material of his trousers and embedded itself into muscle.   
“It should have missed the femoral,” says Hannibal calmly by his side, and Will feels the other letting go of him to tug the scarf from his neck and hurriedly wind it around his injury. Hannibal avoids touching the arrow as much as he can, but some contact is inevitable as he hastily secures the makeshift bandage, forcing Will to grit his teeth as the broadhead twists inside his leg.   
“I don’t expect you to continue,” he adds, and Will straightens up with a deep inhale, leaning gingerly on the leg to test the wound’s performance under pressure.  
“I don’t care what you expect,” he grunts, eyes surveying furiously the space before them, “where is the son of a bitch.”

Ahead of them, a lone figure strides slowly in their direction from the surrounding wall of tree trunks, steps out of the shadow and into the moonlight falling upon this circular stage of a clearing in the belly of the forest. It stops a few yards away from them, and Will knits his brow at the black hunting mask obscuring the face and leaving only the glinting eyes visible beneath the brim of a cap in the same colour. The hood of a black coat is pulled securely over the cap. In front of black trousers and boots rests a loaded black crossbow hanging in repose. If a cloud was to choose this moment to cross the sky, their attacker would be rendered practically invisible.   
“He always was an easy target,” says Hannibal lightly, tilting his head at their antagonist with his hands in the pockets of his coat. Will maintains eye contact with the figure, resisting the urge to retaliate against the unfair comment and aware of the dampness seeping slowly from his thigh.  
“It takes away the fun,” says the shadow monotonously, voice muffled and low – male.  
“Where is she?” Will asks, cutting short the chit-chat.  
“Bedelia?”   
“No, your mother.”  
“Will,” Hannibal interrupts coolly, “there is no need to be crude.”   
Will is about to respond to this with some feeling when the voice speaks up:   
“You’re standing over her.”

All are silent for a moment, and Will becomes aware of the biting breeze building like a tide around them. A gloved hand leaves the crossbow, slips into a pocket to retrieve a cell phone. The luminous screen cuts through the dark, highlights the seams of concealing fabric and the brown depths of the other’s large, downcast eyes. A faint melodious ringing escapes from the earth beneath their feet, the muffled tune continuing for a couple of seconds before the call is answered and the recipient’s voice released into the air through the loudspeaker of the cell phone.  
“Daniel,” it says expectantly, loud in volume due to the settings and yet somewhat sleepy of tone, as though they had caught her mid-dream. Eyes glance up from the source of light to stare into unwavering black and blue. There is a soft click as the gloved hand ends the call and slips the cell phone back out of sight.  
“How long has she been buried?” Hannibal asks as the gloved hand resumes its hold on the crossbow.  
“Hours,” he answers simply, lifting the mechanism in his hands. Moonlight bounces off the point of a broadhead sat in waiting. Will wonders if he would be able to reach back for the piece tucked into his belt at his lower back and draw it on their opponent before another bolt is loosed his way. He assumes Hannibal carries his own gun and is also waiting for the opportune moment to use it, although something tells Will the other would prefer not to. Would find it crude, even though their lives are at risk. He doesn’t need to look over to suspect Hannibal is taking pleasure in this.  
“Do you enjoy hunting, Daniel,” Hannibal asks personably, as though time is not of essence, and each of them will now take a seat, all sense of urgency washed away by that hypnotic accent.  
“I do.”  
“What animal do you enjoy hunting?” Hannibal continues to ask leisurely, setting the pace.  
“Deer, mostly.”  
“What do you do with your deer once you have killed it?”  
“I dress it.”  
“How does it feel when you’re doing this?”  
The figure falls silent, as though unable to locate the adequate words for a satisfying description. Will is conscious of the weight of the piece pressing heavily against him through his shirt beneath his coat.  
“You wish to hunt and dress us the same way you do your deer,” says Hannibal perceptively.  
“Yes,” he answers swiftly, the single syllable exhaled in simple testimony of the adrenaline pumping through his veins, of the maddening thrill of the hunt, and the near orgasmic pleasure of the kill. His eyes turn suddenly on Will, stares fixedly at him across the frozen ground. “I will return for you,” he promises, voice low and muffled through the hunting mask, “and you will watch as I string him up, cut him open, and empty him of his organs.”  
Will smiles twitchingly.  
“You will have to catch him first,” he says, and in his peripheral vision he immediately sees Hannibal darting for cover in the direction from which they came. Daniel runs after in pursuit, eyes spearing Will with an assertion of dominance before he disappears into the dense network of trees. Will turns his eyes back to the frozen ground. Fingertips twitching on his hands.

Hidden behind the wide trunk of a tree, Hannibal waits for Daniel to stalk past before ambushing him. The light of the moon fades as the sun slips onto the horizon, and as it begins to seep its way up into inky blue, its yellow-orange glare reflects briefly off the blades of their knives. In their struggle, Daniel successfully drives the edge home in the old shoulder wound and, with a tight twist on the handle, he wrenches a grunt of pain from Hannibal before a hard shove sends the latter tumbling backwards off a steep slope. Listening to the fall, he immediately begins the process of reloading, lips murmuring each second of the practised steps and the likely number of rotations before his prey reaches the bottom. His ears tell him Hannibal has landed with seconds to spare, but he does not push the process lest it interferes with the accuracy. A moment longer and he is ready. Weapon cocked and arrow poised in the jaws of the riser, he stands at the edge of the drop, surveying the snow-covered foliage for tell-tale signs. Very slowly, he begins to make his descent.

His fingers are numb, but he does not stop. The phantom breath of the stag blows against the back of his neck as he digs, eyes trained on the growing space in the earth and the heavy hooves dragging at the edge of the hole. On his hands and knees, Will pants as he works against the aching of his thigh to claw and claw some more, wishing he had the aid of his beast of a dog.

Daniel’s black figure soon approaches the tree, and Hannibal’s movement disturbs enough snow to make the former look up, but not fast enough. Jumping down on the other’s back, Hannibal wraps an arm around his neck and stabs his knife into one of those gloved hands. Pain erupts from Daniel in the form of a muffled cry, and as they hit the snow, the crossbow is wrenched from his grasp. Releasing the other, Hannibal takes a grounding step back and lifts the device, pointing it in the direction of Daniel’s fleeing figure, waits one – two – three seconds. And pulls the trigger. The arrow spins through the air and pierces his leg from behind, releases yet another stifled cry into the air.  
“A limb for a limb,” shouts Hannibal, kicking aside the snow and setting the crossbow down in the space. “I hope I have left your femoral intact,” he continues to say, stepping onto the stirrup and taking hold of the string. “But I cannot vouch for my accuracy,” he grunts as he pulls the string to the mechanism and lets go with a loud click. “Rather cumbersome for deer, don’t you think?” Looking up, he finds the black figure has disappeared, and smiles at the trail of blood left behind in the snow.

He would be able to dig faster if not for the distractions. Each time he uncovers more earth, his mind convinces him it’s fingertips, then palm, then wrist - all lying so white against the soil like pieces of porcelain. Torn between the desire to grasp and pull free, and the fear of facing Abigail’s decomposing face, Will squeezes shut his eyes, shakes his head hard before resuming. 

The second bolt catches the other’s heel, sends him stumbling down onto his hands and knees. With long, steady strides, Hannibal approaches Daniel’s prone figure, leans down to grasp the shaft protruding from the back of his thigh – and twists. Daniel growls in agony as Hannibal slowly screws the broadhead through muscle and tendon.   
“Do you enjoy tormenting your deer like so?” asks Hannibal, watching down at the writhing shadow beneath him.  
“Yes,” Daniel groans, low and loud.   
“Does it excite you, watching them suffer?” Hannibal continues to ask mildly, the last word coinciding with a sudden thrust from the arm that forces the broadhead through the limb and into the ground beneath - forces the other’s entire body to stiffen temporarily with shock. He listens to the words catching in the other’s throat, to the quick and shallow snatching of air down into the lungs. To the breathless gasping in place of laughter. Straightening up, Hannibal paces round to stand before the man he has skewered to the forest floor. His eyes fall upon the cell phone clutched loosely against the snow.  
“I’ve called the police,” Daniel pants, lifting his head and tugging the mask down from his nose and mouth. He looks up at Hannibal with a lick of his lips before adding, “the casket will loose an arrow if opened.” Hannibal is silent as he listens to his adversary splutter a laugh, his face expressionless as he observes the smile creeping onto the other’s lips. Hidden from view beneath his chest, Daniel tightens his grip on the knife Hannibal had earlier stabbed into his hand.   
“He will die,” he rasps before clasping the handle between his hands and jabbing the blade through the polished shoe before him. Hannibal jerks from the contact, a soft groan of pain slipping past his lips, and as he works to remove the knife, so the other labours to free the arrow pinning him to the frozen earth. As one then the other manages to free himself, a brief connection registers between wide and hooded eyes, both seething with silent challenge and the promise to return and destroy the other. Then each makes his way through the snow in the opposing direction.

He hears his name being called and stops. Straightening up, his face turns towards that familiar accent and he sees Hannibal running towards him with a slight limp and clutching at his bad shoulder. Covered in patches of blood and snow, he looks as though he has taken a tumble and come out the worst for it. Hannibal stops suddenly to close his eyes and release a loud exhale as though exhausted.  
“Is he dead?” Will shouts, and black eyes slip open to regard him strangely for a moment. Seconds tick by as Will waits for Hannibal to answer, wondering if the other is reliving some spectacular display of blood and gore against this winter backdrop, and what would be the man’s first victory alone since this unspoken partnership began.  
“Hannibal?” he says, voice quiet and uncertain. Stirring from his hesitation, Hannibal licks his lips and quickly approaches the edge of the small trench.  
“The hunt is still on,” he explains, falling immediately to digging, the spikes of his hair falling across his eyes as he attacks the soil, “but we must leave.” Will presses his lips together and turns his attention back to the task at hand. Most of the lid has already been uncovered and with their combined efforts, it takes only a moment longer to free enough space in the cold earth before they can break into the wood. Then Hannibal pauses and Will does the same.  
“What is it?”  
“He said the lid will loose a bolt upon being opened.”  
“What, into Bedelia?”  
“No.”   
Will wets his lips and puts his hands on his hips.  
“So we open it from the bottom,” he suggests, and Hannibal looks at him, nods the once. 

Between them they drag the casket up onto the surface, the paleness of the plywood lit up by the glow of early morning light. The birds have long started singing, their shrill melodies reverberating loudly around their heads. Sticking the tips of their knives between the floor and side, they twist and jerk the blades to loosen the nails at various points of the casket, eyes watching for possible signs of injury done to the captive inside. They work as quickly as they can, and Will becomes adamant they are being watched, convinced that he can hear whistling in the air. His heart begins to pound in his ribs at the thought of Hannibal being shot in the back or the back of his skull, the sound of metal cracking through bone playing so credibly in his ears that he cannot hear anything else. But they’re almost there, so he swallows down the instinct to drag the other away from the casket and out of the forest altogether. When enough slack has been created, they gently lift up the wood and, nudging the toes of their shoes into the gaps at either ends, they press down hard on the bottom while pulling up against the last of the resisting nails. Bedelia’s bound body is slowly revealed, clad in a long, silver slip dress and lying pale and still upon the piece of plywood. Once they have put down the casket, Hannibal immediately removes his coat and drags it over Bedelia before gathering her against his chest and pulling up into a stand.  
“I think he was lying about the bolt,” says Will with a glance back at the casket as they begin to make their escape from the forest. When Hannibal doesn’t reply, he looks over to find him staring into the middle distance, looks down at Bedelia’s closed eyes and trailing hair - beautiful, he supposes, when rendered harmless.  
“Is she…” he begins to ask.  
“No,” says Hannibal, pausing before adding, “how is your leg.”  
“I can’t really feel it anymore,” Will murmurs, eyes turning on the large stain at Hannibal’s shoulder, so red now in daylight – had Daniel known about and targeted the old wound? He is missing his suit jacket, and Will wonders if the other is cold, continuing in just his waistcoat and shirt. Even with morning approaching, the air is still ruthlessly bitter.   
“We’ll have a look at it when we’re home,” says Hannibal, and Will suddenly feels overwhelmed with exhaustion.  
“I need a drink,” he utters.  
“Me too,” says Hannibal, and for a moment Will half expects Bedelia to join in with a _me three _.__


	11. Chapter 11

Sat on the edge of the bed, Will watches Hannibal through the open doorway of the ensuite. Watches him unbutton and shrug off the crumpled waistcoat before unbuttoning and removing his shirt, taking care when peeling the material back from the gouged shoulder. Bare-chested with dried blood crusting one shoulder, Hannibal sits down on the edge of the bath to untie the laces of his shoes, removes the good one first, followed by the ruined. His hands move to unclasp his belt and Will can hear the faint rasp of leather followed by the rasp of the zipper before those creased trousers are pushed down long, lean legs. Stepping out of them, he leans down again to carefully remove his socks, taking extra caution as he detaches the blood-stiff garment from the wounded foot. A faint stirring from within his thigh brings a grimace to Will’s face, brings him back to the golden head bowed before him - the delicate hands dropping the unravelled scarf to the floor. Pale eyes lift to pin him with their calm blue depths, cool with indifference.  
“Ready?”  
Drawing in a breath, Will nods and Bedelia tugs the arrow free. Growling his pain through gritted teeth, Will immediately covers the glimmering hole with a thick wad of gauze. As white blooms red in the blink of an eye, he snatches another large square from the pile sat next to him on the covers, pressing it over the sodden piece before hunching over to apply as much pressure as possible to the limb. Lifting his eyes, he watches Bedelia approach Hannibal in the ensuite as he stands at the sink, flushing out his shoulder with saline. With a harmonious rhythm that can often be found between doctors, Hannibal leans out the way as Bedelia leans in to open the cabinet doors, removing from its contents what is necessary. A memory surfaces at the sight of syringes, contrasts the collaboration Will observes with the conflict that once played out against the bathroom floor, the same white tiles upon which fraudulent husband and wife now stand. Wearing the black, over-sized dressing gown, Bedelia looks very much at home, and for a surreal moment, Will believes himself the unexpected guest taking refuge in the house of a strange, seductive couple who will generously nurse him back to health before having him for dinner. 

Once the wound has stabilised, Will removes his trousers and Bedelia begins the attentive process of removing any cloth which the broadhead had managed to drag through upon entry. Breaths leaving him steady and slow, Will lies on his back and gazes drowsily up at the ceiling with a vague awareness of time passing as the brightness of morning drowns everything in a pure, cleansing white. Exhaustion settles itself into his limbs, and he feels he could drift away into a deep sleep any moment now. Hannibal’s face hovers into view; he looks ready for some rest, too. Maybe the three of them could just cuddle up on the bed like his dogs used to. Watching up into hooded eyes, he pays no attention to the needle sinking into his skin nor the syringe pumping antibiotics into his bloodstream to coast alongside the sedative. He imagines Hannibal as an elegant breed of some kind. Long-limbed. A saluki, maybe. Intelligent and aloof. Easily bored. Does not enjoy typical, uncouth dog games such as retrieving balls. Loves to hunt. But is capable of being gentle and affectionate, too. At least, that’s what he remembers reading somewhere. He would most likely give Will a hard time. Eyes closing, Will falls asleep and dreams about sitting in the bath with a saluki between his legs. As he hoses away the suds, the silky hair vanishes to the raised edges of a brand, the scar of a bullet wound in the shoulder. The creature turns its face to look back at him, and instead of a slim face that tapers to the black round of a nose, he sees Hannibal blinking slowly at him through the spikes of hair plastering across his eyes as water sluices its way through the fine tresses, runs down his cheek and falls in clear large droplets off the line of his jaw. 

When he comes round, Will finds himself lying on the bed in an empty room. Through the open doorway, he can hear the whirring sound of a motor floating up from downstairs. The brightness makes him squint as he pulls himself up into a sit. Someone has changed him into fresh shorts and tee while he was out, and all the bits and pieces which had surrounded Bedelia on the floor as she worked have been tidied away. Sluggishly, he slips a hand up the back of his tee to scratch at an itch. His skin feels clean, and he wonders if Bedelia or Hannibal had sponged him down, feels uncomfortable at the thought of either of them seeing him completely bare for differing reasons. Then he imagines both looming over his naked and prone body like a couple of surgeons, and cannot help shuddering from the chill emanating from such an image.

Walking to the threshold of the kitchen, he feels a sudden and strong resistance to the scene before him: Hannibal, wearing only the gauze at his shoulder and his pyjama slacks, is arranging separate ingredients on three plates laid out in a row upon the shiny granite surface while Bedelia, still wrapped in Hannibal’s dressing gown, stands at the die-cast juicer, one hand pushing on the black handle of the domed cover that forces the fruit down against the relentlessly spinning reamer. If there was one kitchen appliance which could best sum up the sensation of being in the same room as Bedelia du Maurier – this was it. Hooded eyes glance up from the spoonful of pate being ladled into the last of three small white ramekins. Bedelia looks up briefly before turning her attention back to the juicer, replacing one spent rind with the next victim sat in waiting amongst a pile of hapless halves.  
“Hello, Will,” says Hannibal with a smile, gaze dropping to the task at hand, “have a seat. Lunch is on its way.” There is a glass of orange juice sat waiting for him at the breakfast bar. Suspicion pools into the pit of his stomach, which he does not enjoy. Under normal circumstances, he would utter his thanks before gratefully gulping down the tangy, pulp-free boost of vitamin C. Now he views one as being in cahoots with the other and refuses to rule out entirely the possibility of being poisoned. He knows he is being ridiculous, but it cannot be helped.  
“Have you checked the dog?” Will asks, one hand on the doorframe. _Strange. He doesn’t usually refer to Duke in that way. ___  
“Yes,” answers Hannibal as he moves to the oven, pulls open the door to release the warm and heavy aroma of bread into the air, “he’s fine.”  
“I’m going to see how he is,” Will announces, pausing with a glance at the glass of orange juice, then at Bedelia. As though she can feel him watching her, Bedelia looks up and smiles faintly at him. Keeping his expression blank, Will enters the kitchen and makes his way briskly to the breakfast bar to pick up the juice before just as swiftly making his leave for the living room.

Duke lifts his head happily from the floor as soon as Will approaches the doorway of the living room.  
“Hey, boy,” says Will brightly as he sets the glass down on the tile of the hearth. Squatting close to the long body of the Great Dane, he rubs his hand along the top of that heavy skull, scratches behind those large, pointed ears.  
“You’re looking better,” he murmurs, stroking the back of the animal’s thick neck. In response, Duke lets out a short, strong bark that rings loud and deep through the room, his thin tail thumping against the floor.  
“And sounding better,” Will chuckles with a smile, eyes drawing to a half close, “did Hannibal remember your breakfast?”  
“He did,” answers a voice from the door, and he looks over to see the other stood with a hand on the doorframe, regarding him with eyes lidded, his head tilted slightly. “Would you care to join us for lunch?” _Should you leave Bedelia on her own in the kitchen _, Will wants to ask. It could be an easier life simply to dispatch those dragging her into their little world – the world of one notorious cannibal and his associate. They arrived here together, picking up their very big dog along the way. Will doesn’t recall the presence of animals when he and Jack walked through the apartment in Florence. Not that it was a competition for most convincing in illusions of domesticity.  
“Sure,” he says, pulling up slowly into a stand, “what’s on the menu?”__

Side by side, they sit at the breakfast bar, eating with a quiet diligence that remains undisturbed by the nuances of conversation. Will listens to the sound of cutlery tinkling against porcelain as he drags the dark rich spread across the toasted surface with the flat of his knife. Then he puts down the knife and lifts the bread to his lips, crunching his way through, grinding with his molars, washing it all down with orange juice that leaves a faintly bitter aftertaste in the mouth because Bedelia had pressed too hard on the reamer and gouged into the oil of the rind.  
“Since you’ll be staying with us for the time being,” says Hannibal civilly, “perhaps you would like to make use of my room.”  
“She can have mine,” Will pipes up, taking a quick swig of juice and looking sidelong at Hannibal who watches back at him with mild interest, glass paused midway to his lips. He clears his throat, leaning forwards on his folded arms to glance past Hannibal to Bedelia perched on the barstool at the end.  
“How kind,” says Bedelia, smiling courteously at him before lifting the rim of the glass to her lips. “Where will you sleep?” she asks with eyebrows lofted. Will turns casually back to his plate, parts his lips to answer.  
“I think it would be in everyone’s interest to sleep upstairs,” Hannibal chimes in and Will watches him nibble at his pate, waits, like Bedelia, for Hannibal to swallow and take a sip of his juice. “A wolf is always safer and stronger with its pack,” he says finally, smiling to himself. Bedelia hums into her juice in vague agreement. Will realises his mouth is hanging slightly agape and presses his lips together, looks down at his unfinished lunch. He only ate it because Bedelia was also eating it and he didn’t want her to see him recoiling like a cobra in the face of the King – its larger, cannibalistic counterpart.

Stood at the chest of drawers, Hannibal moves piles of clothing from the top to the middle drawer as Will moves piles of his clothes into the space created for him. Through the open doorway of Hannibal’s bedroom, and through the closed door of the main bathroom, comes the sound of spray hitting tile.  
“Did you remove your secret stash?” Hannibal asks.  
“What secret stash?” Will asks back, picking up another pile and dropping it into the bottom of the drawer.  
“Anything that you would feel more comfortable having to hand as opposed to being left for another’s use.”  
“Hopefully Bedelia won’t feel the urge to look in my underwear drawer,” Will mutters, picking up a small white sachet from the corner of the drawer and studying the small white ribbon threaded through a hole at the top and tied into a neat bow.  
“No,” agrees Hannibal, “I don’t suspect she finds you that interesting.” Ignoring the comment, Will lifts the sachet to his nose, catches a delicate whiff of citrus and something flowery.  
“Smells nice,” he utters, and two long fingers pluck the card from his hand, holds it over smiling lips. Watching Hannibal gazing thoughtfully at the wall, he listens to him inhaling the scent through his nose, and is reminded of the first time he caught the doctor breathing him in.  
“Jasmine and mimosa,” says Hannibal thoughtfully, “the latter deriving from the Greek word mimos and, according to some, appears to mimic conscious life.”  
“A bit much for the old underwear drawer, isn’t it?”  
“You would rather something else that mimics conscious life?” asks Hannibal with feigned surprise. Will squints at him.  
“What?”  
The bathroom door opens and both men glance past the threshold to watch Bedelia stepping out, her blond hair darkened by water and raked back from her face to fall against the towel in dripping tendrils. She continues towards Will’s room, enters, and closes the door behind her. Will steals a look at Hannibal, subconsciously searching for signs. _Signs of what? ___  
“Which side of the bed would you prefer?” Hannibal asks, turning his face to the familiar piece of furniture. Will follows his line of sight, one hand clutching the edge of the full drawer.  
“Does it matter?”  
“Not really.”  
“Are you going to leave the door open?”  
“Yes. Does that bother you?”  
“No.”  
A pause as Will glances in the direction of his old bedroom.  
“Good,” says Hannibal as he leans down to pull open the bottom drawer and inspect the collection of satin sheets. Will’s eyes fall past the bare shoulder onto the contents beneath Hannibal’s splayed hand, dark in their various shades and silken smooth under long fingers. Skin would simply glide across their cool and flawless surfaces. “It should not come as too much of a shock, then, when you find Bedelia standing at the doorway in the middle of the night,” Hannibal adds, interrupting Will’s idle imaginings.  
“Standing at the doorway,” Will repeats lowly, “you mean she sleepwalks?” Hannibal pushes the drawer to a close and straightens up with a thick rectangle of charcoal-coloured satin between his hands.  
“Yes,” he says simply, “you can pretty much do anything you like to Bedelia and she would not remember a thing.”  
Lofting his eyebrows, Will folds his arms and leans nonchalantly against the chest of drawers, face turned towards the threshold.  
“Would you want to?” he asks quietly, voice low and vague.  
“Would you?” Hannibal asks curiously in return. “Perhaps it would help you overcome your fear of her.”  
“I’m not _afraid _of Bedelia,” Will utters, eyes following the other’s back as he strolls over to the bed.__  
“You needn’t be,” chuckles Hannibal as he falls to stripping the sheets. “Deep down inside,” he murmurs, “she is a little pussycat.”  
Will makes a noise that comes out more disgruntled than intended.  
“Yeah, well,” he drawls as he paces towards the threshold, catching and holding Hannibal’s gaze coolly on his way out, “I’m a dog person. As you know.”

Will wakes to the sound of movement. In the pitch black of night, he is aware of Hannibal climbing out of the bed and making his way towards the ensuite. The light comes on, the suddenness of which makes him squint and turn his eyes away from the cold white rectangle slicing through the dark of the floor to the luminous digits of the alarm clock sat upon the far bedside table. Head rolling in the pillow, Will turns his attention back to the glaringly bright ensuite. Hannibal has taken something out of the cabinet and is preparing a needle and syringe, his hooded eyes trained on the squirting point of the former. Will watches him sit down on the edge of the bath, locate the appropriate spot on his thigh and procced to inject himself slowly but steadily with the substance. Dropping the empty syringe into the sink, Hannibal rests his hands on the edge of the bath and hangs his head. He sits like this for a long time, and Will almost drifts back to sleep watching him until he notices the other beginning to topple. Dragging himself up in bed, Will calls Hannibal’s name – pushes aside the covers and scrambles out of the bed when he sees Hannibal falling back and down into the bath.

“Hannibal?” Will says gently, leaning on his hands upon the edges of the bath and looking down at the other. Hannibal watches sleepily up at him.  
“Hello, Will,” he replies, and under the harsh artificial lighting, Will locates constricted pupils half obscured by low-sweeping lashes.  
“What have you taken?” he asks, leaning up to look in the sink and picking up the small glass vial.  
“Morphine,” answers Hannibal, closing his eyes, “for my shoulder.” Will sighs through his nose, settles to sit upon the edge of the bath.  
“That bad, huh?” he asks quietly, eyes falling on the small white label.  
“Mmm.”  
Will watches the tranquil expression on Hannibal’s face.  
“You know I can’t just leave you here,” he says slowly.  
A low murmuring that sounds like a _why not _? Will doesn’t answer, just continues looking down at the other.__  
“You could kill me now,” Hannibal mutters with his eyes closed, “and I would be quite happy.”  
“Would you?” Will asks, voice quiet.  
“Yes.”  
“Why?”  
“I’m surrounded by family.”  
Will looks down at the vial as Hannibal continues to mumble.  
“You are more likely to be killed by a member of-”  
“I know,” Will snaps, frowning at the sink, “but we’re not family.” He glances down into the bath. Hooded eyes slip open to watch up at him. “So don’t expect to be leaving this place anytime soon,” he adds before looking away again. “I’m not taking you anywhere.”  
“Good,” grunts Hannibal, “I’m too comfortable to move.”  
“Except to bed.”  
“Is that an invite?”  
“No.”


	12. Chapter 12

In the morning, having slept in for much longer than usual, Will comes downstairs to find Hannibal dressed to go out.  
“You're heading out?” he asks, standing on the bottom step, his voice still scratchy from sleep, his thigh throbbing unpleasantly. Hannibal finishes buttoning up his coat and reaches for the new scarf draped close to Will’s hand over the end of the banister.  
“To pick up a few necessities,” Hannibal answers simply, glancing up at Will as he wraps the scarf around his neck, “is there anything you would like in particular?”  
“You’re driving?” Will asks, folding his arms, brow knitting as he watches the other pull a pair of gloves from his coat pocket.  
“Yes,” replies Hannibal, putting the gloves on one after the other, “I’ll manage just fine.” Will decides against asking further questions, giving further warnings in the attempt to persuade the other not to venture out alone.  
“Give me a-” he begins to say, turning on the step.  
“I won’t be long,” Hannibal interrupts, “there’s no need for you to come.” Will turns around, sees Hannibal starting towards the front door.  
“Wait,” he utters, stepping off the stairs with a grimace and hurrying past Hannibal into the kitchen. There is the sound of a cupboard door being opened and then shut again. Will appears at the threshold, re-inserting the magazine of a gun. It clicks into place and he checks the safety before holding it out to Hannibal who looks at the firearm without taking it immediately.  
“Just-” Will utters impatiently, stepping close to shove the weapon into Hannibal’s coat pocket. “Hurry up,” he adds before turning to climb the stairs.

While Hannibal is out, Will decides Duke needs a wash. He will handle the animal with the utmost care, taking all the time he needs. He is not sure what Bedelia will do to keep herself occupied, but that is not his concern; he assumes she has already discussed with Hannibal the course of action if Daniel was to suddenly appear. Hannibal had said nothing to him about protecting Bedelia – no doubt he believed her capable of looking after herself. If anything did happen, Will could at least dip into his secret stash, distributed and stored across various locations throughout the house. Leading Duke slowly and laboriously up the staircase, he is aware of eyes watching his back, but keeps his own gaze on the struggling animal, murmuring words of encouragement under his breath. After the gentle cleansing, he leads Duke into Hannibal’s room, helps him climb onto the bed to rest up. Then he gets his laptop and settles down beside the softly rising and falling body, leaning back against the headboard with a quiet exhale. Hand resting on the top of that large, smooth head, Will pets Duke absently as he watches the blank screen of the laptop and sees Hannibal parking up somewhere, the driver’s door swinging open as he steps out, the arrow flying through the air and impaling itself into the back of that heavy black coat. Hannibal reaching into his pocket to draw his gun, but not before the broadhead embeds itself first into his chest. Hooded eyes snapping shut as a second plunges through layers of coat, suit, waistcoat, shirt - skin, muscle, rib. Punctures the silken surface of a lung to trigger that wheezy labouring for air. Closing his eyes, Will leans his head back, pinching the bridge of his nose. Then he hears it, and he stirs before even Duke does, jumping off the bed and moving to the threshold. From the top of the stairs, he sees Hannibal closing the front door behind him and walking towards the living room, arms laden with brown paper bags. Quickly, Will starts his descent, following in the other’s direction.

Stood with a hand on the doorframe, Will looks into the living room, sees Hannibal standing with his back to him, holding a bag out to Bedelia who slowly sits up in the armchair.  
“Thank you,” she says with a smile, hands lifting to receive the bag with a quiet rustling. Will watches pale eyes glance down at the contents, glance up into Hannibal’s face with an expression he cannot read entirely. A certain knowing. Familiar and faintly fond. Folding his arms, Will steps into the room, pacing towards Bedelia.  
“No sign of Daniel?” he asks, hovering next to her chair and glancing down into the bag on her lap.  
“No,” Hannibal answers, and Will watches him lean down to pick up the other bag, slip his hand in to root around before pulling out something large and spherical. “Catch,” says Hannibal, chucking the object across to him. Will lifts his arm, confident he will be able to grab it with one hand until the hard peel skims off his palm, making him fumble above Bedelia.  
“Blackberries are not yet in season,” says Hannibal with a smile as Will straightens up and looks down at the vivid red ball sat inside his cupped hands: a pomegranate. With a rustling of paper, Hannibal walks out of the room, leaving Will stood beside Bedelia who, with a similar sound, slowly stands up with her bag.  
“Bluebeard’s wife,” she murmurs thoughtfully, “or the bride of Hades.” Eyes still studying the shiny rind, Will sees Bedelia move towards the doorway in his peripheral vision, pausing at the threshold.  
“Was Persephone tricked, or did she knowingly eat the seeds?” asks the voice, smooth and provocative. Will waits a moment longer before looking up from the fruit to find himself stood alone in the living room.

Later that evening, following a relatively uneventful dinner and a quick shower, Will wanders into the kitchen to find Bedelia and Hannibal engaged in some sort of game. Perched upon a barstool at the breakfast bar, Bedelia sits with her hands clasped loosely in her lap, her back perfectly straight. She is wearing a soft red blouse with a fitted black skirt – the colour of the former Will had earlier glimpsed as he stood over her, peering into the bag with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity. He can just about make out the flesh-coloured stockings which were absent when Hannibal had carried her through the door and up the staircase, a mere woman without all the sophisticated trappings, her pale limbs loose and defenceless beneath the coat. How quickly the snake grows itself a new skin, he thinks to himself, eyes tracing the slender shape of her legs. There are no shoes on her feet and the shape of her individual toes is half visible through the thin material of the tights. Gaze lifting to the back of her head and the elastic strap encircling tumbling blond tresses, Will frowns, suddenly realising he cannot remember Mollie’s exact size in blouses, skirts, hosiery, nor shoes – cannot recall precisely the number of times she had worn these items together. What was her shoe size, he asks himself, growing irritable from the doubt rising suddenly through his mind. A four? Four and a half?  
“What can you recognise?”  
Will looks over at Hannibal stood at the unit opposite the breakfast bar, wearing a dark denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his hair soft and falling across his eyes to one side. One hand rests on the granite next to a glass of wine as the other stretches across the polished surface to hold a small sprig of herbs before Bedelia’s nose.  
“Animal,” she answers simply, “of the domesticated variety.” Hooded eyes glance over in Will’s direction the same time Bedelia removes the blindfold and turns her face to look back at him. Folding his arms, Will looks back at them both.  
“They say death is a scent that cannot be masked nor washed away,” says Hannibal amusedly, bringing the little dry bundle to his lips and taking a thoughtful sniff, “perhaps they also meant dog.” Will grunts as he walks past them on his way to the fridge. Opens the door, looks for the orange juice. Listens to Bedelia bidding them good evening and glances over his shoulder to watch her walk out of the kitchen with a bottle of wine. He turns his eyes back on the contents of the fridge.  
“What was that?” he asks, reaching for the carton.  
“What was what?” Hannibal asks back, and Will turns around, stepping away from the fridge, untwisting the lid of the carton. With the other watching, Will gestures at the blindfold left upon the granite before taking a swig of orange juice. Hannibal looks down at the sleeping mask, reaches across the granite to scoop it up with his fingers.  
“I used to test Abigail’s sense of smell in a similar manner,” says Hannibal thoughtfully, eyes downcast, “I once told her we have a basic affinity for our family which allows us to detect each other from smell alone.” For a moment, Will recognises nostalgia and a touch of sadness, perhaps regret in that quiet accent, in that calm countenance, and he looks away with a lick to his lips, swallowing down the last trace of citrus along with the unpleasant pang that has started to emanate through his chest. Setting the carton down on the granite, Will pulls himself onto the barstool with a grunt, folds and leans his arms upon the cold surface.  
“Can I have a go?” he asks lowly, lofting his eyebrows. Hannibal smiles politely and offers him the blindfold. Will takes it and slips it over his head, tugs it down over his eyes, adjusts it a little before clearing his throat and settling to lean upon his arms. Sitting quietly, he waits for Hannibal to begin. 

There is no denying that such a sight brings pleasure to Hannibal, and in a different time, in a different place, he would have ached with anticipation, waiting with bated breath for the cold realisation to slip like a noose around that neck before pulling taut to choke a sob of fear and despair from those taunting lips. Would have revelled in the other’s pain and terror upon lifting the blindfold to discover the head of Abigail Hobbs presented to him on a silver platter. It would still bring him pleasure to do it now: to crush that precious trust building so precariously between them, to see himself reflected in those wide staring eyes, so blue, so wild, so helpless in his insatiable lust for reckoning - for blood. Yet none of this could outweigh the pain of the aftermath - that faintest possibility of reciprocation lost forever as Hannibal watches the light die in Will’s eyes, and vice versa.

It is so quiet in the kitchen that Will begins to wonder if Hannibal has left the room; he cannot be sure if that is Hannibal he can smell, or just his scent lingering in the air after he has moved. Just as he is about to lift the blindfold, he hears the other’s voice, low and hushed.  
“What can you recognise?”  
Will inhales deeply through the nose.  
“Duke,” he answers simply, hand lifting and brushing against the folded lead held before his face.  
“Very good,” says Hannibal, and Will chuckles under his breath.  
“You don’t have to make it easy for me,” he says.  
“Have I ever?”  
Will feels his lip curling at the gently teasing tone of the other’s voice and waits for the next test, impressed by how silently Hannibal is able to move around the kitchen, rendering the canvas of his imagination an unhelpful blank. From nowhere, a pungent burst of fermented fruit greets his nostrils, full-bodied with the promise of silken tannins - the first red Will had taken from Hannibal’s stash during his absence and continues to enjoy since the other’s return.  
“Fortnum’s claret,” says Will, “a blend of merlot and…cabernet franc?”  
“Merlot, cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon.”  
He hears the crisp sound of a blade sinking through a hard rind, licks his lips in anticipation of the first tendrils of sweetness curling through the air towards his nose, mingled with something stronger, sharper – unmistakable. The clarity of the tainted sugar builds until he is sure Hannibal is holding the slice of fruit directly beneath his nose.  
“Fuji,” Will utters, able now to taste it on his tongue, “and you.” He gropes for the apple with a hand, pushing up the blindfold with the other. Looks down at the wedge of creamy-white flesh hugged by a smooth, striped rind blushing red against yellow. A spot of blood seeps into the cold wet surface of the exposed fruit, warm and metallic, triggering a strange tingling in his tastebuds. Glancing up, he sees Hannibal studying the cut in his thumb.  
“Very good,” he murmurs once more before parting his lips and closing them over the pad to suck softly at the skin. Will swallows silently.  
“So what do I win?” he asks, grinning at Hannibal who slowly returns the smile.

During the middle of the night, Hannibal gets up again, stirring Will from his sleep. Blinking in the dark, Will watches him push aside the covers and swing his covered legs over the edge of the bed.  
“Where are you going?” he murmurs huskily, sitting up. Hannibal does not reply as he perches on the edge, facing Will with his bare back.  
“Morphine?” he continues to ask.  
“Yes.”  
“And if Daniel shows up?” Will asks before pausing, watching the other’s shape in the darkness. “It’s not a good habit to develop, Hannibal.” At the sound of his name, Hannibal turns his face to the side.  
“I will leave it up to you whether or not you will assist me if our friend decides to pay us a visit,” he says plainly, pushing off the bed and standing up. “As far as poor habits go,” he continues to say, half-turning to watch the open doorway, one hand slipping up absently to curl around his bad shoulder, “I have enough that it would not make a difference.”  
“Like what?” Will asks, pulling up his knees and folding his arms upon the satin draped over their tops. Hannibal tilts his head thoughtfully.  
“Allowing pets in the house,” he says, fingertips kneading softly, “allowing you to drink juice straight out of the carton.” Will snorts quietly, running a hand through his hair.  
“I wouldn’t quite put that on the same level as shooting up on morphine,” he mutters, watching the sheets, “can’t you just have an extra glass of wine?”  
“Apart from drink and drugs, is there anything else you would care to suggest?” Hannibal asks amusedly.  
“Sex,” says Will, glancing up to meet the other’s hooded gaze. When Hannibal continues to watch him blankly without responding, Will adds lowly, teasingly, “unless she doesn’t want you.” Dark eyes watch him for a moment longer before they look past him to the ensuite. Silently, Hannibal makes his way to the bathroom. Will watches him turn on the light, open the cabinet doors. Watches Hannibal prepare the needle and syringe before injecting himself, stand up from the edge of the bath, turn off the light, and walk back towards the bed. Will settles down as Hannibal approaches to climb onto the sheets. Without a word, he lies down on his stomach, face turned the other way. Head in the pillow, Will’s eyes fall to tracing the line of that naked back down to the subtle rise of Hannibal’s posterior beneath his pyjama slacks. Imagines it undulating between Bedelia’s thighs. Skin slick with sweat. The spikes of his hair falling across seething black eyes, his sharp lips parting to excited pants of pleasure or pressing together stubbornly in silent anticipation of orgasm.  
“Do you miss sexual intercourse with a woman, Will?” Hannibal murmurs, voice blowing lowly across satin. Will watches the back of his head, glad to be spared the scrutiny and desiring simultaneously to be picked apart by that hooded stare.  
“I guess.”  
“You may masturbate if you wish,” says Hannibal mildly, and Will makes a quick, noncommittal noise to mask his sudden apprehension of the other’s nose. _I can smell you, _he imagines Hannibal whispering into his ear at such close proximity.__  
“It’s a natural, healthy thing to do,” Hannibal adds, and Will clears his throat, folds his arms behind his head on the pillow.  
“Wouldn’t want to ruin your sheets,” he utters, eyes lifting to the ceiling.  
“It did not stop you in the past.”  
A long pause of listening to one another’s breathing in the dark.  
“Yeah, well,” Will murmurs eventually, voice low and quiet, “you weren’t there then.” 

The material of the pyjamas is cool and silken beneath his burning palm. Warm fingertips glide down the back of his hand, rubbing between his knuckles, stroking along the sides of his fingers - pulling his hand up before pushing it under the waistband. Snatching a breath through his nose, Will opens his eyes. Finds himself lying on his side, staring at empty sheets in the deep blue light of the early hours. Instinctively, his hand slips under the pillow, fingers closing tight around the handle as he drags out the firearm, drags his legs over the edge of the bed. Standing up, he stalks cautiously towards the threshold, bare feet silent upon the floorboards. Stopping at the doorway, he looks across the landing to the closed door of his bedroom. As he slowly makes his way over, he begins to tell himself Daniel has nothing to do with Hannibal’s disappearance, for surely he would have heard something, felt something, no matter how small, disturbing the waves of a light sleeper as a snared fly would the intricate web of a spider. Stood before the door, Will listens closely for sounds on the other side. He contemplates putting his hand on the handle and pushing down - envisions the straight edge of the door easing back to reveal recumbent limbs entwined upon the sheets, and decides against it.

With less caution than before, Will slowly climbs down the stairs. Wanders automatically in the direction of the living room, gun held low and almost forgotten about as he considers the unconditional love of domestic animals, craving suddenly to sit beside Duke and run his restless fingers across his sleek, warm fur, seeking quiet comfort in the simple contact. Walking past the threshold, he suddenly stops. Hannibal is lying beneath a blanket on the settee that is rarely used and pushed up against the far wall. Head resting on a cushion, his hair has fallen across his eyes and his lips are parted slightly as he sleeps. Eyes falling to a half close, Will paces across the room until he is stood in front of the furniture watching down at the sleeping figure.

A familiar scent lures him in, pulls him up from the dark depths like a reeling line promising death, but also a glorious glimpse of the dazzling sun. His eyes slip open slowly, pupils adjusting to the black eye of the muzzle staring back. He blinks the once, twice, then looks past the hard lines of the firearm to a countenance that appears equally as unyielding in the blue.  
“I was having a pleasant dream,” he murmurs, watching back at the other with half drawn eyes.  
“You expect our killer to be interested?” says Will coldly. Hannibal gives his squatting figure a slow once-over.  
“You were in it,” he says lightly, slipping his hand out from the warmth of the blanket to wrap around the barrel. Will maintains his grip on the gun, his eyes falling upon the back of Hannibal’s hand.  
“Does it give you pleasure,” Will says in mimicry, unable quite to mask the anger in his voice, “flaunting yourself.” Blue eyes glare at him. Letting go of the gun, Hannibal pushes up gradually into a sit, the blanket slipping from his shoulder.  
“Are you upset with me, Will?” he asks, head tilting faintly as he watches the other straighten up and look towards the drawn curtains, eyes lidding with exasperation. “I suspect Daniel favours his hunting knife over a firearm,” he adds, leaning back against the settee.  
“What difference does it make?” Will mutters. “You are unarmed.”  
“Are you fearing for my life, Will.”  
Silence.  
“Did you masturbate?”  
Slowly, Will turns his head to look at him and Hannibal waits patiently for those eyebrows to knit, for disgust and outrage to pinch that face trying so hard to remain passive.  
“You left so I could masturbate.”  
Hannibal smiles. Will scowls.  
“Your well-being is important to me-” he says simply, and Will tosses the gun at him before Hannibal can say his name; the heavy weight of it strikes against his chest before falling into his lap. Without another word, Will turns and walks out of the living room. Hannibal watches him go, a faint smile on his lips.

Sat with the space of one barstool between them, Will hunches over his bowl of cereal, staring into the milk as Bedelia sips her coffee at the end of the breakfast bar. She is wearing her own dressing gown as opposed to Hannibal’s: a satin thing, charcoal in colour. Chosen because Hannibal understands Bedelia’s preferences, or because he enjoys seeing her in it. Maybe there is a set of matching lingerie. He doesn’t recall the last time he bought Mollie something in satin. _Do you miss sexual intercourse with a woman, Will? _With a sudden vehemence, he wills their killer to come so they may end this hunt and send Bedelia on her way.__  
“Good morning,” says Hannibal upon entering the kitchen. Bedelia returns the greeting. Will murmurs into his mug. “Did you sleep well?” he asks and Will glances up at the rolled-up shirt sleeves, suddenly feeling underdressed in his shorts and tee.  
“Yes,” answers Bedelia, “the bed is very comfortable.”  
“I can imagine.”  
Swallowing down a scolding mouthful of coffee, Will clears his throat before picking up the spoon.  
“I am glad to find you both here-” Hannibal begins to say.  
“Where else would we be,” Will snorts.  
“I have a proposition I would like you both to consider.” The spoon pauses on its way to his lips. Glancing sidelong, he sees Bedelia finish taking a sip of her coffee before slowly lowering the glass mug, watching Hannibal expectantly with a faint smile. Will lowers his eyes, shovels another spoonful of cereal into his mouth.  
“A vacation. Just the three of us.”  
Will frowns.  
“You have no objections?”  
“Why not,” says Bedelia coolly, apparently without concern. Will feels eyes on him.  
“You expect him to follow us?” he asks without looking up.  
“He may if he wishes.”  
A pause.  
“Where are we going?” Will asks.  
“Europe.”  
Will lifts his eyes. Hannibal is smiling at him by the coffee machine.  
“Duke will be looked after,” he says encouragingly, although Will does not feel himself warming to the idea like he had when they stood together in the garden, in the snow, digging Tomas’s grave. But he can hardly say no.


	13. Chapter 13

A jet of cold air, small but insistent, blows down against his neck, making Will look up at the overhead dials. Squinting against the blast, he reaches up to adjust the settings, suddenly aware of how uncomfortable he is already and they haven’t even set off yet. Glancing to his left, he finds both of his travel companions perusing their programs with mild interest; the glossy cover of the booklet propped between Hannibal’s hands transports Will back to the house earlier that morning. 

He was brushing his teeth at the sink when he heard Hannibal through the noise of running water. Spitting into the basin, Will turned the tap off.  
“What?” he shouted, waiting for the other to repeat himself, and when he didn’t, Will stepped out of the ensuite to find Hannibal stood at the bed before the open suitcase, holding up two sets of suits by their hangers – a faintly perplexed expression on his face as his dark eyes flitted critically from one to the other then back again. Three programs made a fan on the bed near the case, their slick covers overlapping one another, the top of which read in a scrawling, elaborate font: Opera Comique.  
“I cannot decide which you would prefer.”  
Will hadn’t really slept and was becoming slightly irritable at Hannibal’s prioritising of such matters as his wardrobe over the grander scheme of things – which the other also appeared to altogether ignore or dismiss entirely for the pretence of a holiday. An impulsive weekend away in some glamorous European city with old acquaintances.  
“What are you talking about?” Will mumbled around the toothbrush. “Pack what you want.” He went back into the bathroom, heard Hannibal humming thoughtfully to himself.  
“This was easier when I didn’t have your coordinates to consider as well as my own.”  
Will stopped and put his head past the threshold, toothbrush in his hand.  
“I’ve already packed,” he said with a frown.  
“I know,” replied Hannibal, and Will continued to watch him, suspicious of the glint in those dark eyes, waiting for the other to continue.  
“You saved me the tedious task of rifling through your wardrobe for replaceables,” said Hannibal simply, tilting his head at the left suit. “This pattern would suit you well, however it looks rather similar to my own. We’d be matching on the streets of Paris.” He looked over at Will whose contorted brow resembled the sort of acquiescing more commonly recognised in the long-suffering spouse.  
“Is anything I packed still in the case?”  
“Your underwear.”  
A pause as Will considered a rebuke – somehow the sight of Hannibal handling the favoured suit like a fragile animal made him decide against it. Made him sigh through his nose in vague acceptance of the doctor’s eccentricities.  
“Glad to know something has your approval,” he muttered in the end as he turned back to the sink.  
“Rather,” Hannibal began to say, never one to miss an opportunity to correct misunderstandings, especially if they belonged to Will Graham, “I remain undecided on the etiquette of purchasing intimates for another man. It has always been relatively easy with Bedelia, though I am not unfamiliar with your measurements, however the concept of guessing your preferences is a new novelty to me.”  
“Can you possibly pack without talking, please.”

The flight attendant smiles at him on her way down the aisle. Will starts to return the gesture, but his face feels dry and stiff, and before he can force a smile, she has already reached the passenger awaiting her assistance a few rows back. Reclining in his seat, Will braces his arms upon the armrests, taps idly at the ridge of buttons with a finger. He glances over again, eyes falling on the long digits splayed against the artful cover. He wants to swap places with Bedelia so he may ask Hannibal questions without drawing attention to himself. With the attendants hurrying back and forth in the aisle between them, it is difficult to begin a conversation without interruption. Will tells himself to wait until they are in the air. As often as he has travelled, there has only been a handful of occasions where he had done so in Business – he wonders if, had it been just the two of them, that Hannibal would have upgraded to First Class. With or without the extra leg room, the best part of a flight for Will was always the landing. Sometimes, he enjoyed the take-off, especially if he was making a hurried leave from something and could feel the unease falling away from beneath his feet as the plane sped up with a deafening roar and propelled itself high into the clouds; attached to this weightlessness was a sense of abandon which appealed to him when he closed his eyes and waited for the aircraft to align itself. This time, Will knew he wouldn’t be feeling the same way about the next few minutes prior to the safety demonstrations, knew his anxiety was linked to some of those questions passing through his mind as busily as the flight attendants conducted their checks upon each row: was Daniel on the plane? Was he there when they arrived at the airport? When they strode up to the kiosk to check-in and pull their cases up onto the weighing belt – had he watched as Hannibal produced their false passports, smiled politely at the handler, and accepted their returned books with the tickets folded between the pages?  
“Would you like a drink, sir?”  
Will looks over at the circular tray held towards him, laden with two different types of refreshment. Picking up a small glass of orange juice, he thanks the hostess and lifts the cool beverage to his parched lips, downing the contents in one long gulp. Almost immediately he regrets not choosing something alcoholic, and prepares to request something strong the next time an attendant approaches in his direction.  
“You should take a nap if you are tired,” suggests Hannibal from across the aisle.  
“I might on the second leg,” says Will, watching the champagne sliding down the tipping flute and slipping past the subtle gap in the other’s lips. Past Hannibal’s profile, Bedelia is also sipping orange juice, her eyes on the program. “What time will we arrive in Paris again?”  
“Three thirty in the afternoon local time,” explains Hannibal, “it will take another hour to travel into the heart of the city.” Will rolls the empty glass between his hands.  
“Why don’t you just tell us where we’ll be staying,” he asks, raising an eyebrow at Hannibal who takes another leisurely sip of his champagne, swallows, smiles playfully to himself.  
“Where is your sense of romance, Will?” 

Like the other buildings in the vicinity, their hotel is a typical example of Parisian architecture: five stories high with an elegant Haussmannian façade of beige stone blocks, the surfaces of which are carved with the clean, straight lines of classical mantels framing evenly spaced, rectangular windows – the largest of which shares the same length and width of a set of double doors and belongs exclusively to the front of the second storey. Large and deep horizontal grooves run evenly through the brickwork of the ground storey, lending the foot of the building a certain weightiness together with its heavy Roman mantels and brick archways framing semi-circular windows decorating the tops of their regular counterparts as well as that of the main entrance. Eyes climbing further up the building, Will finds small stone balconies the same colour of the brickwork decorating individual windows, a wrought iron railing encompassing the external walls of each storey to follow – an elaborately carved, classical relief of a woman’s head protruding over the circular window crowning the highest point before the slanted, mansard roof. Knowing Hannibal, he would not be surprised if that very window marked the room in which the doctor would be staying.  
“Well?” says Hannibal, trapping Will in the depths of his aftershave as he leans over him to peer through the window of the taxi. Nostrils flaring, Will feels rather than sees the excitement crackling silently in those hooded eyes and lending Hannibal an almost childish charm that is dangerously infectious. “Was it what you expected?”  
Suddenly needing air, Will puts his hand on the latch, his gaze returning to the perfectly green, perfectly round hedges sat in their black planters flanking the black-painted entrance of the hotel.  
“It’s predictable,” he utters before opening the door of the taxi. 

Stepping past the glass doors which slide automatically out of their way, the three of them wheel their cases down the mirrored entrance with its rows of white orchids towering from either side, make their way across gleaming white marble broken up by the single presence of a large decorative rug lying beneath a long black desk displaying open art books, brochures, and various other leaflets advertising what the city has to offer its cultured visitors. As Hannibal approaches the reception desk, Will gives the bright and immaculate lobby a quick survey: a square archway at one end flanked by black pillars topped with white busts to mark the entrance of a bar and dining area, an alcove to the side decorated with framed pictures and furnished with a comfortable couch, a coffee table laden with more reading material, a lamp and an armchair. Somewhere he could come and sit if he became restless in his room, Will thinks to himself.  
“The lift is just around the corner,” explains the receptionist, “we hope you will enjoy your stay.” Hannibal thanks the smartly dressed young woman before turning from the desk with two cards in his hands. The first he offers to Bedelia who has been standing patiently at his side. She receives the card with a polite smile, opens it to read its contents to herself in silence. With mild satisfaction, Will suspects Hannibal has kept them both equally in the dark at least up to this point, and it is with a slightly stronger prick of trepidation does he speculate upon the logistics of room-sharing when Hannibal hands him the second card. He opens it. The left inner cover is an artistic black and white shot of a park. The right is blank with two small flaps holding in place the black card-key with the words printed in white: Grand Hotel du Palais Royal. Underneath that, the name of the city, and underneath that, the words: Palais Royal Suite.  
“The room is located on the seventh floor with private access,” says Hannibal, and Will looks up from the card, unsure of how to ask, so he doesn’t. Instead, he follows after Hannibal and Bedelia as they head towards the lift. Stepping in last, Will glimpses past their shoulders, an illuminated, true-to-life scale photograph of multiple archways leading to an iron gate that opens out onto a lane of blossoming trees. It is so convincing, he imagines he could push both Hannibal and Bedelia aside to sprint off into its distance. The doors of the lift slide promptly to a close, making Will feel uncomfortably confined.  
“Our room is on the top floor,” explains Hannibal, taking the card from Bedelia and removing one of the keys to give to Will, “you must take the private elevator on your floor to reach it.” Will takes the key and slips it into his own card before turning to face the elevator doors. “There is plenty of time to rest and freshen up before the 7.30 performance at the Opera Comique,” adds Hannibal, “I shall bring you your suit once I have unpacked.” Eyes watching the light jump from 4 to 5, then 5 to 6, Will waits silently for the lift to stop. 

The suite is too spacious for one. Stepping into the predominantly white living room with his case, Will lets the door swing to a close behind him. His eyes move half-heartedly across the pastel pinks and purples of the cushions perched on the white leather settee and matching armchair, flowers of the same hues sat in their crystal vases and failing to stir new enthusiasm with their fresh scent. Shucking off his coat, Will tosses it onto the armchair before locating the stairway leading up to the rest of the suite. As he climbs his way round and to the top, he notices the huge glass pane of a spacious shower stall replacing the wall to his left. It is just what he needs. Bending over to undo his shoes, he kicks them off as he straightens up, walks straight into the bathroom, his hands moving to the front of his check shirt, fingers plucking at the row of buttons. Shrugging the garment from his shoulders, he drops it onto the cold white marble floor before making a start on his belt and trousers. Opening the glass door, Will turns on the water and listens to the sound of spray striking against marble. He looks through the open blinds of the glass wall to the neat white bed on the other side, to the white leather bench at the foot of the bed, and the surrounding chests of drawers – all in the same, spotless white. Closing his eyes, Will imagines the yellow ticker swinging once, twice. Imagines opening his eyes to a white room washed red.

Turning off the shower, Will hears knocking on the door and quickly exits the stall. Snatching a towel from the side, he wraps it around his hips on his way down the stairs, hurries towards the door and opens it just as the knocking stops. Hooded eyes flicker up in greeting.  
“That was quick,” says Hannibal amusedly, stood there with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. Will is conscious of the beads of water gliding down the groove in his back, slipping down the skin of his limbs, dripping off the wet points of his hair straight into his eyes. Laying a hand casually on the doorframe and holding his towel in place with the other, he lifts his chin, eyes lidding at the other’s perfectly lacquered hair, the crisp white shirt unbuttoned at the throat. Watching those black eyes fall to a half close.  
“Monsieur Clement Le Norcy is head chef here in the Le Lulli restaurant,” says Hannibal, his head tilting slowly to one side, “I thought perhaps you would like to join us for a pre-theatre dinner.”  
“Is Bedelia on the menu?” Will asks, voice low and soft, his eyebrows lofting. Casually nonchalant. Faintly teasing.  
“She could be,” says Hannibal, his musical accent casually nonchalant. Faintly teasing. They stand there for a moment, just watching. Eventually Hannibal stirs on the spot, back straightening as he turns his face to the side to watch idly down the corridor.  
“If you really wish to make a meal of Miss Du Maurier, I must ask that you wait until after the performance,” he adds.  
“What’s so special about this opera?” Will asks, pulling the towel from his hips to wipe at the back of his neck.  
“The aria at the end,” says Hannibal, eyes on some fixed point in the distance, “arguably the most beautiful aria in the history of opera, and one I would hate dearly to miss.”  
“You would choose a song over sustenance.”  
“One finds sustenance in various ways,” answers Hannibal, eyes returning to Will’s face. “Meet us at Le Lulli in fifteen minutes if I have managed to whet your appetite,” he adds, turning to leave, and Will begins to turn back inside when he sees Hannibal’s shoes pausing on the red carpet.  
“And Will,” says Hannibal, the sound of his voice inviting blue to meet shimmering black, “you smell nice.” Sharp lips curl into a smile, hooded eyes giving Will a lingering once-over before he strolls away in the direction of the lift. “I will bring you your suit after dinner,” he calls, Will following the back of that white shirt with his eyes until it has moved quite beyond their reach.

The restaurant is busy when Will steps through the square archway. Under the dim lighting, finely dressed figures cut elegant shapes and patterns as they perch upon the black leather stools lining the bar, shifting discreetly with the golden glint of a watch or an earring as they lean across candle-lit tables. The air is full of hushed energy, and Will catches snippets of conversation in French on his way towards the table. Enclosed by screening curtains which separate them from the neighbouring tables on either side, Hannibal and Bedelia are sitting opposite each other, mirror to one another’s mild amusement, the hand poised just so with a half-empty glass – a display of refinement as sharp as the cutting edge of a blade. An extra glass of wine sits waiting for him to the side. Slowly, Will approaches the back of that chair, that golden head, the scooped back of her black dress and the enticing groove of her spine running between the subtle protrusions of her shoulder blades. Contemplates resting a hand on Bedelia’s right shoulder before leaning down to press his lips to her right cheek in greeting, catching Hannibal’s eye as he does so. Instead, he moves around the table, slides down silently into a sit beside Hannibal who smoothly slides Will’s glass towards him across the reflective surface. There are too many mirrors in the establishment, creating a strange, simultaneous illusion of space and the inability to escape from the gaze of others. Sometimes, in those seconds hovering between a consideration and the passing of a comment, Will looks down at the mirror table tops, finds the severe contours of the Wendigo regarding its female counterpart. Spots a third, equally black countenance leaning close.


	14. Chapter 14

The Opera Comique is within walking distance, but the decision is made to travel there by taxi due to the snow. Will watches the odd couple making tracks on the pavement outside on the narrow streets of Paris. His attention is drawn to an old man wearing a black cap and heavy black coat, walking his large black dog – the sight of its muzzle lifting curiously to the drifting white specks reminds Will of Duke. Against the dimness through the pane, the gold of Bedelia’s hair reflects brightly in the glass, a cluster of smooth, tumbling curls tucked to the side to reveal the alluring stretch of neck framed by the elegant jawline above, and the soft haze of dark mink below. Beside her, Hannibal has his face turned in the opposing direction as he watches past Bedelia out the window, forelock combed immaculately to the side, a faint smile on his lips. 

They pull up on a street beside the opera house and Will climbs out of the taxi as Hannibal pays, the icy evening breeze combing through the short curls of his hair as he strides around the vehicle to open the door for Bedelia. He offers her his hand, watching those gloved digits grasp onto him before closing his own around them to pull Bedelia slowly onto the frozen diamond paving. As the embroidered tail of her dress slips past with a soft click of heels, his gaze falls upon the hand curling over the edge of the seat with a flash of shirt cuff and watch. He holds out his hand as that raked head emerges, lacquered surface catching the glow of lamplight lining the entrance to the building behind them, black eyes reflecting the same yellow glint as they look up at him past the edge of the open door.  
“I think I can manage,” says Hannibal, smiling as he steps out of the vehicle. Will slips his hands into the pockets of his tailored trousers, watching other taxis pulling up behind them, their doors opening to polished black shoes and bright coloured heels. The slam of the taxi door brings Will back to Hannibal who turns from the vehicle as it begins to roll away, smiling still in silent excitement and watching Will and Bedelia like a child who cannot wait to show its parents something special they had discovered at the bottom of the garden. Stepping close, he offers his right arm to Bedelia, glances amusedly at Will before offering him his left. Eyebrows lofting at the gesture, Will turns his eyes upon the glimmering trail of people drifting towards the entrance.  
“I think I can manage,” he utters, pacing ahead of Hannibal and Bedelia with a faint crunching of snow. 

Staying true to its Baroque structure, the night’s performance will be over in an hour’s time. With the lack of an interval, Will feels he has no choice but to pay attention to the stage. His eyes, however, keep straying from the performers to the audience, sat in the boxes beside them, in the wings below, both seen and unseen. The feeling of being watched returns, stronger this time, like a stubborn scent that refuses to be masked by the sensuous notes of Bedelia’s perfume. Glancing sidelong at that exposed neckline without the protection of a fur capelet, Will thinks about his last experience of female company, wonders, as his eyes slip past her profile to the one sat beside, if there could be a repeat performance of an evening that ended up a failed and potentially disastrous experiment. Wonders if Hannibal would really allow him to murder Bedelia. Stood in the hallway earlier, he had implied a certain willingness – to what, precisely, Will cannot promise, and he ought really to put to rest the attempt to read further into the other’s words if they prove merely another example of the doctor’s inclination to toy with the feelings of others. Had he lingered a little longer outside Will’s door, had not strolled away so soon, Will wonders if it would have become an inclination of his own to maintain this impulsive dalliance with Hannibal without the company of Bedelia – it was always there, of course, that precarious, almost flirtatious exchange between two people trying to outsmart one another from day one, only it never seemed to take on such an affecting, near physical weight as it did now. Or perhaps it had done, each time he so doggedly continued his refusal to consider any interaction with the other to be anything but a quietly infuriating game. He would tell himself he didn’t want to play something he could not see the end result for, but he wouldn’t be able to deny the simultaneous desire to see the unknown through to its final stage, whether or not it put him at a disadvantageous position, and it is this latter instinct – this recklessness – that somehow prevents him from making his escape from this foreign country, from the notorious company he finds himself keeping.  
“Excuse me,” he utters under his breath, rising from his chair and walking towards the doors. He feels eyes boring into that space between his shoulder blades and is not surprised to hear footsteps treading quietly upon the marble behind him when he slips out of the box and into the empty lobby.  
“You’re missing the performance,” Will murmurs as he follows the signs overhead for the restroom.  
“As long as we make it back for the final aria,” says Hannibal, falling to pace evenly at Will’s side. They make a turn left and continue travelling down another hallway illuminated by the dim glow of a chandelier, surrounded on either side by classical depictions restored in muted oils, and above by the endless tiers of gilded gold, gleaming from the glow of the electric bulbs.  
“Could it not have waited until we’re back in our rooms?” Hannibal adds, voice light and playful as they approach the heavy door. Will puts his hand on the brass handle, glancing off to the side.  
“My room or yours?” he utters before pushing the door open and stepping inside.

Walking down the middle of the room past marble sinks and tall mirrors, Will heads straight for the far cubicle, looking back at the other long enough to make his intentions known. Entering the small space, he holds the door open until Hannibal comes in, then closes it behind him. Folding his arms, Will turns from the door and meets without expression, the lofting of invisible eyebrows.  
“Who goes first?” asks Hannibal, also without expression. Ignoring the comment, Will turns his face to the side.  
“I think we’re being followed.”  
“By who?”  
Will knits his eyebrows at Hannibal who turns his attention to the invisible pieces of lint being brushed from the satin lapel of his tuxedo jacket.  
“We are rather sought after, are we not?” he says, tugging delicately at his shirt cuffs.  
“I suspect we wouldn’t be here if we weren’t.”  
Hannibal pauses his grooming.  
“What a perceptive boy you are,” he murmurs quietly, dark eyes made the blacker beneath the dim lamplight as he regards Will with that familiar, condescending adoration capable of stirring a deep, unfathomable longing within that deep, unfathomable part of him. The restroom door opens, stealing their attention with the secretive sound of heavy wood swinging on brass hinges. The slow and steady click of approaching footsteps makes Will slip his hand into the pocket of his trousers, fingers sliding down the smooth edges of the folding knife. Hannibal, on the other hand, expresses no interest in anything beyond simply listening, which he does so with a tilt to his head. The person continues to pace purposefully towards their cubicle. Slowly and silently, Will moves to stand between Hannibal and the door. He opens the blade of his knife with both hands to avoid making any sound that could warn whoever it is that has stopped on the other side of the door.  
“Mathis?”  
The accent and querying tone makes Will hesitate.  
“Sortir.”  
He feels Hannibal lay a hand on his wrist, but does not fold up the knife. Allowing the other to step forward, Will stands back against the cubicle wall, hand lowering to his side. Hannibal releases the lock and opens the door.  
“Oh…excusez-moi,” utters the voice, and Will glances at Hannibal, finds him blinking blankly at their intruder.  
“Puis-je vous aider, monsieur?” asks Hannibal, giving the stranger a curious once-over. Will presses the knife to a close, drops it back into his pocket before gripping the edge of the door and leaning forward. Dressed in a tailored tuxedo, the handsome young Frenchman stares back at Will, his heavy dark eyebrows lofting in surprise.  
“What do you want?” asks Will shortly, sensing Hannibal’s disapproval without turning his eyes from the baffled Frenchman and his dark, combed-back tresses, the neatly trimmed facial hair.  
“My apologies,” he laughs, lifting a hand to itch guiltily at the light beard speckling his jawline, “I thought you were my friend.” He smiles charmingly, dark eyes moving from Will to Hannibal. Will is stood close enough to feel Hannibal’s breath on his cheek.  
“You want to join us?” he asks dryly, chin lifting as he regards the other with a bored expression.  
“Is there room?”  
“No.”  
Will pushes the door to a close.  
“There is no need to be rude,” says the young man from the other side. They listen to him make his way out of the restroom, the soles of his polished shoes clattering noisily against the marble floor. Will feels Hannibal watching him in close proximity, feels suddenly claustrophobic and a bit warm under the collar.  
“No need indeed.”  
“Je m’en fous,” Will mutters, waiting for the sound of the door before putting his hand on the latch of the cubicle.  
“What a filthy mouth you have,” murmurs Hannibal as he waits for Will to step out.  
“Are you going to make me wash it out with soap?”  
“I shall make you choke on it if I’ve missed my aria.”

Bedelia barely bats an eyelid as Will and Hannibal re-enter the box and return to their seats on either side of her. Shifting to get comfortable in his chair, Will glances briefly at her placid expression, assumes Hannibal was confident she would be able to handle herself in their absence. Sat with his back straight and his hands clasped together in his lap, Hannibal is once more absorbed in the performance with eyes half-closed and a faint smile on his lips. Mimicking the other’s posture, Will’s gaze falls upon the sea of heads below them, the paranoia weighing still upon his shoulders. As his eyes skim over one row to the next, he spots the Frenchman from the restroom looking back and up at their box. Smiling in Will’s direction, he lifts his hand in greeting, and in his peripheral vision, Will sees the gesture being mirrored. He turns his face to find Hannibal returning the wave, those hooded eyes watching down at their friend with mild amusement.  
“Stop flirting,” Will mutters.  
“Debrouille-toi,” says Hannibal with a smile.

When it is time for the final aria, the atmosphere in the auditorium seems to change upon the first press of a key on the baroque organ, the first slow drawing of the bow across the cello to deliver a melancholic bass – the first delicate strum of archlute strings. Against this accompaniment, the soprano begins her recitative, high notes soaring only to fall like the deep drawing and releasing of one’s breath in a wretched sigh. She asks for the hand of Belinda, but Will hears another name – imagines not the head of the costumed soprano lying upon the other’s bosom, but lacquered hair pressing to red chiffon streaked with gold. The aria begins, its jarring meters and lines foretelling the goddess’s imminent destruction, the combined strain of the violins and viola pulling like wire through the clay of his being. Will does not enjoy the sensation with ease, and when he looks across at Hannibal, he is met with a sight he cannot empathise clearly with, the realisation of which fills him with a sensation very similar to pain – and he doesn’t know why. From what he can surmise, hooded eyes look beyond the stage to some private auditorium – the nave of the Norman chapel, perhaps – where he sits solitary on the front pew, legs crossed, hands clasped together in his lap, lips faintly agape as they are now – where that liquid trembling, caught and suspended between low-sweeping lashes, is allowed to fall. The richness of emotion disturbs Will, makes him look away as though he had intruded upon the other’s privacy. 

The bar is empty and quiet upon their approach. After ordering their drinks, Will stands with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, Hannibal with one hand upon the white marble, neither of them expressing particular desires to sit down on the bar stools or to move away to a table.  
“Are you disappointed Daniel didn’t meet us tonight,” Hannibal asks while they watch the bartender prepare their beverages, listen to the faintly musical tinkling.  
“He stood us up,” Will mutters, reaching for the glass placed before him and thanking the bartender in French, “but he’ll be back.”  
“What did you think of the opera,” he asks, lifting and pressing the rim of his glass to his lips; Will watches Hannibal sip his wine, waits for him to swallow and sigh quietly in satisfaction.  
“I found it difficult to concentrate,” Will replies honestly, watching down into the contents of his glass, “but that’s not a reflection on the performance.” Hannibal makes a noise of understanding.  
“The destruction of Dido takes precedence in the performance,” says Hannibal as he leans his elbow upon the marble, gaze fixing on some inconsequential detail of the bar’s décor, “allowing little sympathy for the actions of Aeneas.”  
“You believe he deserves our sympathy?” asks Will, folding his arms upon the polished stone surface.  
“Virgil remarks on Aeneas’s struggle with his own desires to comfort Dido in her pain, and in doing so, he makes clear Aeneas’s conflicted nature,” Hannibal explains, pausing thoughtfully for a moment before adding quietly, “the time he spent hunting with Dido was considered a momentary abandonment of his true destiny.”  
“He was a dutiful demigod.”  
“Yes.”  
Will takes a sip of his wine, licks his lips and swallows as he waits for Hannibal to continue. To his surprise, the bartender reveals he has been quietly listening to their conversation by adding informatively:  
“Virgil did not idealise love.”  
Hannibal smiles faintly at the interruption, his expression soft and inviting as he lowers the glass from his lips.  
“Indeed,” he says quietly, eyes lidding at something neither Will nor the bartender can see. “The arrow shot causes only destruction.”

Somehow the hours elude them and amidst the idle conversation – sometimes with, sometimes without the bartender or another third, sometimes forth party – it turns midnight. Venturing up together, Will steps out of the lift, paces with Hannibal to his door. Fingers pressing into the sharp edges of the key card in his pocket, he hesitates.  
“Goodnight, Will,” says Hannibal, and Will can see it before it happens: the returned gesture, the waiting for Hannibal to disappear around the corner on his way to the lift that will remove him for the remainder of the evening behind a couple of sliding doors.  
“Do you want to come in?” he asks.  
“You wish to show me the suite?”  
“Sure.”  
Pulling the key card from his pocket, Will swipes it in the reader, pushes down on the heavy handle. 

As Hannibal looks around, Will fetches them a drink. They venture upstairs to the bedroom and sit down together on the leather bench at the end of the bed, staring ahead into the dining room.  
“Are you happy with your room?”  
“It’ll suffice.”  
“We have the better view, but your shower is exceptional.”  
“It’s…very big.”  
Hannibal sips his wine. As does Will.  
“Are you no longer used to sleeping alone?”  
Will swallows more wine and clears his throat.  
“I guess not.”  
A pause.  
“How is your shoulder?”  
“How is your leg?”  
“One more drink should do the trick.”  
“Maybe two.”  
Will lifts the glass to his lips and tastes nothing – glancing down, he realises it is empty.  
“Would you like me to check how your wound is healing.”  
“It’s fine.”  
Hannibal takes another sip of his wine. Will becomes aware of the heat radiating off the palms of his hands as he holds the glass between them.  
“You could do, I mean, you might as well while you’re here.”

Standing to put the glass down on a nearby chest of drawers, Will shucks out of his tuxedo jacket and drops it onto the bed. Leaning down, he unties and removes his shoes, then straightens up to undo his belt before unbuttoning and unzipping his trousers. Pushing them down his legs, he steps out of the garment, picks it up and lays it on the bed beside the jacket. He steps back to the bench, unsure whether to remain standing or to sit back down. Still holding his glass, Hannibal looks over the sutures in his thigh.  
“It will heal neatly,” he says, “perhaps you will be returned in one piece after all.” Will unclasps the bowtie and tosses it onto the bed before fiddling with the top button on his shirt.  
“I suppose we shouldn’t keep Bedelia waiting.”  
“Bedelia is not the sort to wait up for a man,” explains Hannibal plainly, “either you come or you don’t.” Will watches him finish the wine in his glass.  
“You can stay if you want,” he says, returning his attention to the buttons on his shirt.  
“Have you grown comfortable with the idea of masturbating in the presence of another man?”  
“The exhibitionist in you must be rubbing off on me,” Will mutters. Hannibal makes a thoughtful sound. Will finishes unbuttoning the shirt and is about to remove it when Hannibal turns his head towards the bathroom.  
“May I use your shower?”  
“Help yourself.”  
As Hannibal rises to his feet and moves towards the bathroom, Will takes off his shirt and gathers up the other pieces of his tuxedo. Dropping the pile onto the empty bench, he sits down on the edge of the bed to remove his socks, wondering if he should retrieve a tee from his case. _If you’re going to dress like you’re at home, you might as well sleep on a towel _. He removes his boxers, untucks the sheets and climbs into the bed. Settling back against the plush pillows, he dims the lights, watches the circular breakfast table stood in the dark of the living room with its two accompanying chairs. The brightness of the bathroom draws his attention. From the corners of his eyes, he watches the other undress through the open blinds of the glass wall, the movements not entirely dissimilar to his own, yet different at the same time. In the reflection of the mirror, fingers fumble elegantly at silver cuff links, setting them down upon marble with the faintest click before moving to tease free the tight knot of the bow, pulling the satin sash free from the stiff collar of his shirt. Will watches those fingers stroke against the smooth nub of buttons as they are plucked loose one after the other, and the edges of the crisp shirt parts to softly curling chest hair, falls back from the curves of his neck blending into shoulder – falls down to reveal through the small, round indentation the bullet’s point of entry, then the raised edges of the indistinct crown, the rearing boar, the ‘V’, the ‘E’, the ‘R’. His eyes drop distractedly to the lowering belt and trousers, waits for those thumbs to hook into the elastic band before dragging those close-fitting boxers down the smooth slopes of – Will rolls over onto his side.__

__After the shower, Hannibal towels off his body and hair and stands before the mirror, inspecting his shoulder. Wearing nothing more than the fresh scent of body wash, he gathers up his items, turns off the light, and ventures back out into the subdued lighting of the bedroom. Placing his pile of clothes beside Will’s on the bench, he turns around and opens the doors of the built-in wardrobe, removes a hanger, and begins to hang up his tuxedo, hands brushing smooth rumpled surfaces, tugging collars straight. Satisfied with the state of his own suit, he removes a second hanger from the wardrobe and picks up Will’s shirt, lifting the crisp material to his nose and inhaling briefly before slipping the smooth edge of the wood into one arm, then the next. When he has finished seeing to their clothes, Hannibal approaches the side of the bed, untucks the sheets, and slides under._ _

Will dreams about having sex with Molly. Arms wrapped around her waist, chest pressed against her back, he thrusts slowly into her from behind, eyes closed, lips parted to his shallow breathing. As the pressure builds, his eyes slip open to skin as black as pitch, and just as he feels himself about to come, he tightens his grip on her waist and sinks his teeth into her shoulder. With a groan, Will shudders from the rapidly cooling sweat covering his body and at odds with the warmth radiating from the skin pressed against his own – in the confusion of waking, the pulsating waves of pleasure ebb fast against the crashing tide of realisation. A hot, panicky exhale leaves his lips, stirring the hair at the other’s nape before he darts back upon the sodden sheets.  
“Sorry,” he breathes, wetting his lips and raking a hand through his hair. Glancing down, he spots a thin thread of semen stretching from the head of his penis to Hannibal’s inner thigh. With a grimace, he closes a hand around himself and begins to sit up as the other stirs, reaching down blindly with a hand to slowly pull the covers over his body.  
“Dream?” he mumbles, voice low and sleepy.  
“Yeah,” Will answers, half whispering, knees drawing up as he begins to knead at the back of his neck.  
“Molly.”  
A pause.  
“Yes.”  
“That’s nice.”  
Will doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. He sits there for a long time, listening to the other’s breaths until it becomes quiet snoring. Then he lowers himself back down against the cold, damp sheets, tells himself there’s no need to leave even if he cannot trust himself not to gravitate subconsciously towards the heat of another body – whether he remains in the bed or settles himself on the settee, he won’t be doing anything now but stare at the ceiling until daylight approaches. 


	15. Chapter 15

Increasingly, Will begins to feel like a child whose parents prefer not to keep informed about upcoming events. If the reason for this is a surprise, he can understand – any surprise Hannibal and Bedelia could have in store for him would hardly be the sort you anticipated with a smile, and is therefore best accepted on the spot for what it is without the anxiety of prior speculation. The more convincing theory would be that both parents are burdened with a charge they cannot leave, and who they must reluctantly bring along with them to places and events that promise hours of boredom for said charge. The problem with this theory is that Will is not the child of Hannibal and Bedelia and therefore not their responsibility. They could have left him back at the hotel. He could have picked up one of the shiny brochures on the table in the lobby to give him ideas of cultural things to do. Or he could have sat in the bar and drank the night away, talking to the bartender. But as much as Will did not appreciate being made to feel like a child, he continued to harbour the juvenile fear and suspicion of being excluded. This meant he accepted all invitations without question, even if he suspected Hannibal could hear the imaginary dragging of feet beneath the civilised verbal exchange between adults. 

Earlier, he had spent hours in the morning and afternoon walking under countless black and white shop awnings lining the Rue St Honore, Rue Faubourg, Avenue Montaigne, slowly acquiring one glossy bag after another, each one containing an item he would not have purchased had he been on his own. They stopped once for lunch at an establishment where Will caught Hannibal glancing thoughtfully at the beautiful waitresses, perhaps speculating on how their order could be improved with other in-house ingredients. Sometimes they stopped for coffee, setting their numerous bags down by a table surrounded by boxed hedging, lifting glossy porcelain cups to their lips. Back at the hotel, Will handed over the bags he was helping to carry, and was told to get changed before coming up to their suite. Stood in his own living room, he was about to look through his bags when a knock sounded at the door. He opened it to Hannibal carrying a bag that looked like any other they had accumulated. Without saying anything, Will went back inside, holding the door open for the other as he waited at the threshold. Locating the bag containing Bedelia’s dress, Will picked it up and glanced over at the doorway to find Hannibal studying him.  
“What?” he asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious under the scrutiny of those black eyes – eyes which had been busy people-watching and perusing various purchasable goods all day.  
“You look tired,” said Hannibal, a finger stroking absently at the black cord of the bag as he continued to watch him, “perhaps you should stay here and rest.”  
“You don’t want me to come?” Will asked, eyebrows lofting.  
“What a suspicious boy you are,” chuckled Hannibal, stepping into the room and putting his bag down on the leather armchair before pacing over and taking the one from Will with a brief brushing of fingertips.  
“I always want you to come,” he said, smiling. 

Will stares at the back of the headrest in front of him, lost in thought. Through the open door, the cold evening air creeps into the space of the car, sweeping into the black leather interior a sparse dusting of snow. He is glad to be out here on the obscure, empty street where they have parked a short distance away from the function. As he had anticipated, the party was held for a certain gathering of the social elite, and whilst he didn’t mind floating in between elegantly decorated rooms with elegantly presented people – accepting offers of a refill whenever he crossed paths with a member of the serving staff – he wasn’t comfortable with being introduced to strangers as Hannibal’s protégé. For one, he could only lie so much about the demands on a musician, and did not appreciate having to rack his brain for comments on baroque composers while Hannibal and Bedelia, the opulent Mr and Mrs unknown, were whisked away by the host to be introduced to another couple. From a far corner of the crowded room, he glimpsed beneath the illuminance of a modern chandelier, the lofty coil of her golden hair, her marble cool demeanour paired with his lidded eyes and amused smile. Lifting the flute to his lips, Will remained on the perimeter like a stalking animal, eyes fixed on the enigmatic pair past the curve of a bare shoulder, the back of a carefully sculpted coiffure. Now and then an accented voice would speak up by his side: a charming couple, are they not? Are you familiar with their background? I feel as though I have seen them from somewhere before – you know that feeling? More often than not, he attracted the attention of beautiful young women wishing to know more about his scar, their eyes absorbing his neatly trimmed face, raking through his dark curls, admiring the figure he cut in his new French suit with the shared, brazen confidence of a pack of she-wolves, circling, testing, ever so curious. He flirted with their infectious curiosity and found himself enjoying it when he sensed that hooded stare seeking his face from across the room – capable, once, of triggering the beginnings of a deep anxiety, a sudden breaking of cold sweat across his skin. Somewhere along the line, something happened so that the only anxiety he now knows stems from not being able to feel those black eyes on his person.

“You only had to ask if you wanted to see me on my own,” says a voice. He glances up to see Hannibal stood with his hand on the top of the open car door.  
“You followed me,” says Will, watching the amused expression on the other’s face as he leans down to survey the spotless interior of their hire car, the dark depths of his eyes thawed quite thoroughly from a few glasses of wine. He can smell the new expensive aftershave Hannibal is wearing, the same one he had originally chosen for Will as they stood together in the shop with the flamboyant male assistant. He had politely declined the other’s offer to buy it for him, saying he already had one.  
“As expected?”  
“I have no expectations of you,” he utters, turning his attention to the crease where the back meets the seat, rubbing his fingers searchingly up and down along the groove, “just as you have no expectations of me.”  
“Perhaps you wish to kill me before driving off,” says Hannibal brightly, “leaving Bedelia with my body in the street of a foreign country. Assuming she doesn’t leave us beforehand.”  
Leaning down across the backseat, Will continues his search, probing a hand beneath the heavy mat covering the floor of the left side of the car.  
“Or perhaps you would take me with you,” Hannibal continues to say in playful speculation, “storing my spent corpse in the boot for later use.”  
“I don’t consider myself partial to necrophilia,” Will mutters, eyes on the back of the seat as he leans forward to run his hands into the space beneath it.  
“Perhaps not. I was merely curious which part of me you would see fit to consume first.”  
Will pauses, holding still.  
“You consider yourself partial to me, Will, even if it is an inconvenience.”  
The words are confident, spoken as a statement. Pushing up from the seat, Will reclines against the leather upholstery, his hands clasping in his lap.  
“Can anyone be partial to the bane of their existence?” he asks, brow contorting as he watches down at his hands, the finger on his left bereft still of its band.  
“I’m not interested in anyone, Will. I’m interested in you.”  
His voice, clear and earnest, makes Will look up, and out of the gloom, he sees a figure fast approaching Hannibal from behind. Alerted by the look in Will’s eyes, Hannibal straightens, hand darting behind the lapel of his suit jacket the same time Will reaches for the piece tucked against his lower back and pushes off leather. Neither of them are fast enough. Clean-shaven with perfectly lacquered hair and wearing a finely tailored suit, Daniel could be a younger Hannibal, watching Will coolly with heavy lidded eyes as he latches onto Hannibal, one arm over his chest, the other raised with the knife that has already breached the skin of his neck above the white collar. Heat squirts through the frigid air in a streaming arc, hitting the polished toe of Will’s shoe as he whips out his gun, finger on the trigger. A shot is fired, the sound reverberating through the street – a flurry of white escapes Daniel’s lips. Through the cloud of condensation, Will spots Bedelia standing stock-still further up the road, bare arms straight, both hands on her pistol. The shadow abandons Hannibal’s side as quickly as it came, the dark of his hair, of the thread of his suit swallowed in a flash by the beckoning night before Will can begin to follow. The clattering of heels draw near as Hannibal searches calmly the gaping wound in the side of his throat, his fingertips slipping and sliding in their blind scrabble, the red fluid pouring between the gaps in his and Will’s digits as he instinctively clamps his own hand over the other’s neck. Whatever Hannibal is trying to do, it doesn’t seem to be working, and panicked by the volume of blood escaping the wound, Will snatches the scarf from Hannibal’s shoulders, throws and winds it around Hannibal’s neck, dragging the make-shift bandage round and round, round and round before the other can protest.  
“Get in,” says Bedelia, tugging open the driver’s door and sliding swiftly behind the wheel as Will drags Hannibal down onto the backseat and leans across him to pull the door to the same time Bedelia drags the end of her dress inside the car and slams her door shut. The engine roars to life and they pull away from the street. 

Under the recurring flash of streetlights, Will stares at the saturated scarf beneath the press of his hands, stares at the placid expression on Hannibal’s face as he lets Will near strangle him in his attempt to staunch the blood flow.  
“Has he severed an external jugular,” asks Bedelia, watching them in the rear mirror as she drives.  
“Yes,” answers Hannibal, voice a little tight from the restriction of Will’s hands.  
“We’re going to Charles,” she says, removing her own scarf with a hand and tossing it back. Catching the expensive silk, Will wraps it around Hannibal’s neck on top of the sodden cashmere, not convinced it will do much to help, and wishing he had agreed to wear his own.  
“Are you sure you will get us there in time?” he asks, trying not to sound anxious as he meets that blue stare in the mirror. Whoever Charles is, he thinks to himself, he must be capable. Must be trusted if her decision is not met with protest from Hannibal.  
“I’m afraid you will just have to trust me,” answers Bedelia, returning her attention to the road ahead. The lights fall intermittent as they join the freeway. In the growing dark, Will doesn’t know why he is still holding onto Hannibal’s throat. He could let go now, let the other take over, but the pounding of his heart won’t let him. It has not settled since he saw Daniel, the ease with which he had come upon the both of them continuing to trouble him – the ease with which that knife would have reached the other side of Hannibal’s neck had Bedelia not fired in the time that she had. Would his have made it in time? He can’t be sure. The thought makes him shudder.  
“Are you cold?” Hannibal asks, and Will continues staring nervously out the window.  
“Your blood is keeping my hands warm,” he mutters lowly, trying to lighten the mood with some ill-timed humour. He meets the other’s gaze, finds amusement in those black eyes and would smile if not for his concern.  
“Are you?” he asks, frowning.  
“No.”  
Hannibal tilts his face in his direction, watches Will closely from under low-sweeping lashes. He becomes aware of their close proximity, of his own thigh pressing tight against Hannibal’s. Of the scent of blood and aftershave which is gradually, unbeknownst to Will, making him lean in just a little closer.  
“Does it feel nice?” he asks, the warmth of his breath blowing against Will’s lips.  
“Hannibal.”  
Will leans back at the sound of Bedelia’s voice.  
“Time and place,” she murmurs with her eyes on the road.  
“Of course,” says Hannibal with a smile, “my apologies.”

Bedelia makes a call through the car and after a few seconds, manages to make a connection. Through the loud speaker, a man’s voice answers clearly in French. When he realises who he is speaking to, he continues in English. Bedelia apologises from the outset then explains the situation in a few succinct phrases. He does not interrupt and only speaks when she has finished, offering her and her acquaintances his aid without hesitation. Listening in the back with Hannibal, Will is wary of the unspoken beneath the mild-mannered hospitality and grows increasingly uncomfortable with being at the mercy of Bedelia and the generosity of a stranger. He cannot help wondering whether the man would have responded differently had Bedelia made their identities known. Perhaps it was a risk she did not want to take. The more he thought about it, however, the more Will suspected Hannibal must also know this Charles, a man who clearly possesses a medical background and who must have some degree of emotional investment in or obligation to Bedelia in order to so readily accept the burden of an unexpected visit in the middle of the night. It bothers him also to see Hannibal so calmly accepting of his fate, as though he is utterly confident he is in safe hands. This last thought makes him feel foolish, and he begins to let go of Hannibal’s neck, the matted surfaces of the scarves sticking to his skin, making him fumble until he feels the other sliding his own hands beneath his own, their fingers stroking together as Hannibal helps to free Will from his hold. Leaving the other to staunch his own wound, Will moves back to his side of the car, hands clasping in his lap to control the trembling. 

They stop outside a pale building with steps leading up to a deep porch fronted on the right by two neat rows of decorative stone balconies running between three straight pillars of the same stone. Above sit the three evenly-spaced, rectangular windows of the first storey, a regiment of straight lines carved into the stone façade in the typical classical fashion beneath the grey tiles of the sloping mansard roof. On the ground floor, the glow of yellow lamplight illuminates through the muntin of the large casement windows, the ornate edges of gilded furniture and frames of artwork hung upon the walls. Bedelia gets out the car and hurries towards the steps while Will opens the door for Hannibal. As he steps out onto the pavement and begins to stand, a spell of dizziness overcomes him, and Will grabs the front of Hannibal’s suit jacket to steady him before he falls into the door. Wrapping an arm around his middle, he pulls Hannibal’s listless weight against his own body before helping him reach the building. Leaning close, Will catches more of that deep metallic tang with a flaring of nostrils, glances sidelong at those red hands which continue to press over the scarves, at those stray strands of hair falling loosely across downcast eyes – his skin so pale in the dark.  
“Doctor Lecter,” says a voice in greeting, the same monotonous voice from the loud speaker. Will looks up from the bottom of the steps to see a tall dark man dressed in a three-piece suit stood in the open doorway with Bedelia, the white in his carefully-trimmed black facial hair, in the closely-clipped curls and sideburns – the colourless discs of his eyes – all glowing a cold and uniform silver in the dim. The combined shape of their figures block out most of the light from the house. In his peripheral vision, Will sees Hannibal lifting his head.  
“It’s good to see you, Charles,” he mumbles as Will quickly begins to lead him up the steps, conscious of time and how they cannot afford to waste any more with formalities. Bedelia enters the house, followed by Charles who turns his head to look back at Hannibal and Will, grey eyes neither welcoming nor unwelcoming.  
“I wish I could say the same, my friend.”

He doesn’t know which is worse: being in the room and watching Hannibal’s increasingly lifeless body being handled by a stranger and someone who might as well be a stranger, or waiting outside imagining the other being subjected to the whims of both doctors, the signal to save or not to save passing between eyes so cool and detached, they might as well be dealing with an animal. And Will, painfully lacking in the necessary expertise, might as well be another fixture on the wall. He stays with Hannibal because he is the best out of a bad bunch, not because every touch they lay on his person draws Will closer to the table, makes him glance warily from one doctor to another, makes him stare searchingly at that placid face for signs of resistance, a signal in some form or shape for Will to seize the nearest sharp implement – he realises he has yet to wash his hands, unable quite to divert his attention from the ones working on Hannibal: latex fingers probing, pressing, attaching and inserting things, pulling things through. Quite soon, Hannibal falls unconscious, and Will in turn falls under the pressure of scrutinising every detail with a heightened bout of paranoia. He observes Bedelia’s washed and beautifully manicured hands passing the doctor metal objects stored like polished cutlery in the kitchen drawer. Bedelia locating with prior knowledge the cupboard door which opens to a chilled space packed tight with bags of blood. Will hopes there is enough, and would have offered to give his own had it been a practical option. When the vein has been repaired, Charles rinses then peels the gloves from his hands and drops them in the bin. He walks out of the kitchen, a quick glance back at Bedelia from those sharp grey eyes making her complete her check of the transfusion before joining him out in the hallway. 

Shucking out of his suit jacket, Will steps up to the edge of the table and gently drapes the garment over the one already covering Hannibal. Beneath the white glare of the electric chandelier, Hannibal’s skin is bleached of colour, lending him a strange, almost artificial pallor. Suddenly tired, Will takes hold of a dining chair, moves it closer to the table without upsetting the intravenous line, and sits down. His eyes fall upon the cannula attached to the arm beneath the rolled up shirtsleeve, and he wishes they were back in the house, back home where they had managed things between the two of them without the need of outside help. Hannibal’s relative lack of care in the situation has disturbed him, makes him wonder if the other has willingly let his guard down, leaving – trusting – Will to muster enough vigilance for the both of them even though he claimed to have no expectations of him. The distant sound of footsteps and voices in the house reminds Will the equation has changed, and he finds it difficult to judge whether he is being subjected to some kind of personal test, or that Hannibal has simply grown overconfident in his company of three. At this rate, Will suspects they could sustain further attacks from Daniel if other acquaintances of either Hannibal or Bedelia prove to be of the same caliber as Charles. Whether or not Will can trust these people is a different question; he barely trusts Bedelia on the best of days. Bedelia. A passive partaker in what began as their hunt – his and Hannibal’s – a reluctant bypasser swept up by the unexpected storm that grew from two eccentric but internationally obscure serial killers. As it turned out, three became one and two became three. If Hannibal had his sketchbook with him, Will knows exactly what he would add.  
“Would you prefer a formula or a diagram?” he asks, smiling faintly at that tranquil expression of still lashes and softly parted lips, that hair falling dishevelled and with an almost boyish grace across the sleeping eyes of a monster. 

Leaving the kitchen, Will watches Bedelia and Charles standing together at the entrance to the house. The chauffeur returns, slipping past them to collect the final piece of luggage before carrying it down the steps to the waiting car.  
“Thank you again for your help,” she says, arms folded beneath the borrowed shawl.  
“Consider my debt repaid,” he states, pulling on brown leather gloves a couple of shades darker than his own skin tone. Walking out, he turns his face to give Bedelia one last look, and Will measures the man’s profile: a series of sharp angles, a blade honed to cut like all blades do, but weighted differently and crafted for a specific method of devastation known only to its handler. That high, unperturbed brow gave nothing away. Nor did the thin line of his lips.  
“I don’t hope to see you,” he begins to say then pauses to glance at Will across the elegant space of his living room before continuing, “any of you, upon my return.”  
“You won’t.”  
A final exchange between grey and blue, a silent display of mutual respect in the briefest of glances followed by the sound of brogues clicking hasty down stone, then the muted click of the door as it is pushed to a close.  
“How long do we have?” he asks, feeling a touch more at ease with the doctor’s departure, and yet remaining mildly perplexed by Bedelia’s loftiness, by the ease with which she conducts herself in any space at any given time.  
“A few days,” she answers, glancing in the direction of the kitchen, “which is probably what he will need.” Leaning against the cold gilded edge of a table, Will continues to study Bedelia’s face and finds the beginnings of exhaustion weighing upon her eyelids. He lowers his eyes to the dark-stained floorboards.  
“Do you think he will find us?” he asks.  
“Daniel?”  
“Yes,” he answers, looking up and meeting her in the eye.  
“My aim wasn’t the best,” she says with a lofting of her eyebrows, “I believe I shot him in the shoulder or thereabouts. He ran off fairly quickly. As far as I’m aware, we weren’t followed here. Unless you noticed otherwise?” An arching in one of those sculpted eyebrows, subtle enough to make her question a shrewd one, which in turn brings a question of his own to the forefront of his mind: how many times had she glanced in the rear mirror to know the answer to her own question?  
“Let’s see how he’s doing,” she says, walking past him on her way back to the kitchen.

They take turns supervising the transfusion. Will stays with Hannibal while Bedelia disappears into another corner of the house. He has just finished his mug of coffee – Charles’s coffee – when she reappears at the threshold wearing a dark shirt – Charles’s shirt – and carrying a square of folded garments which she puts down on the side. Will glances at the dark-coloured items sitting on white marble.  
“They will fit,” she explains, strolling past the table on her way to the kettle, invading Will’s peripheral vision with the graceful movement of her bare legs and feet.  
“Won’t he mind?” he asks flatly, watching her put the appliance in the sink and turn on the tap. The sound of water striking against metal interrupts the silence of the kitchen. His eyes stray to the back of her thighs, imagines large hands splayed against their supple surfaces, pinning them back as those sharp lips part to exhale one heat against another. The same lips which had parted for him once.  
“I believe Charles is past taking offence.”  
The splashing stops and the kettle is replaced in its stand.  
“We hardly gave him a choice,” Will mutters, sitting back in his chair and meeting her in the eye when she turns around, arms folding, head tilting a touch to the right, ready for his questions.  
“I wasn’t sure he would help us,” he begins to say, gaze returning to the gentle rising and falling of Hannibal’s chest beneath the suit jackets, “he doesn’t seem to like Hannibal much.”  
Bedelia makes a thoughtful sound. The kettle begins to boil. They wait in silence for it to finish. He listens to the opening and closing of a cupboard door, the soft clink of porcelain upon marble.  
“They had a fight once.”  
He looks over as she lowers a teabag by its string into her cup before pouring, her eyes on the rising water level. He wants to tell her how ridiculous she looks, making herself a cup of tea instead of lifting a bottle of red to her lips – it has been a taxing day, he’ll give her that – but does not wish to interrupt her recounting, not when information seems so hard to come by these days.  
“Charles lost an eye,” she continues to say, picking up the teabag by its label before dipping it back into the water, “his glass one is so convincing, many are often fooled, even up close.”  
“I couldn’t tell,” Will admits blandly, speaking so it feels less obvious that he is waiting impatiently for her to continue, for her to confirm that both men were fighting over herself, that Hannibal was jealous of Charles, resulting in his brash attack on the other man – he can see it already, a gleaming fork protruding from his fist, lidded black clashing with lidded grey from opposing ends of the dining table. Bedelia lifts the cup to her lips, her eyes on the marble work surfaces.  
“You are relieved of your post now,” she says, glancing at him over the porcelain rim, sipping delicately at the hot contents before adding, “when you come back, bring me a washcloth, please.”

Bedelia was right. Charles’s clothes did fit him, more or less. They also fitted Hannibal, more or less. Stood in the spotless bathroom, Will towelled himself down after a quick shower and put on the shirt Bedelia gave him, but kept his own suit trousers, uncomfortable still with being in a stranger’s house let alone putting on his clothes. Carrying his sullied shirt back to the kitchen, he hung it on the back of a dining chair before helping Bedelia to remove Hannibal’s. He watched her wipe Hannibal’s neck and chest down with the washcloth and hot water before helping to dress him in the clean shirt. Between them, they transferred Hannibal out of the kitchen and into the nearest guest room. It wasn’t easy, especially with the cumbersome intravenous line, and at one point they had to lower Hannibal against the ground for a brief respite before continuing down the hallway. Eventually, they managed to get him into the bed and Will told Bedelia he would administer the remaining bags of blood and keep an eye on Hannibal through the night – he doubts he will be able to sleep anyway, and she has done more than enough for Hannibal as it is. Accepting his decision, Bedelia warned Will to be prepared in case Daniel ‘proves persistent’ against the odds. Then she left him to it, retiring to the neighbouring guest room. Dragging a chair up to the bed, Will kept one eye on the elevated bag as he opened the modest-looking toolbox handed to him by Bedelia, examined its carefully placed contents before taking out the cleaning rod and a cotton patch.

“Did you find it?”  
Will opens his eyes at the soft sound of his voice to find Hannibal watching him sleepily through the obscuring strands of his hair. A little colour has returned to those sharp cheekbones, their edges softened by the yellow glow from the bedside lamp. There is still a little blood left in the bag hanging above his head. Slumped low in the chair, Will lifts his head from where it had fallen against his shoulder.  
“Find what?” he asks quietly.  
“Your ring.”  
“It’s in my room.”  
“Ah.”  
“It’s not important.”  
“We’ll go back for it.”  
“It’s not important.”  
He sees Hannibal glance sidelong at the bedside table and sits up, reaching for the glass and closing his hand around its cool sides before leaning in to press the rim carefully to the other’s lips. Hooded eyes watch down at the water as he takes a slow sip followed by another.  
“Which eye did you take,” he asks, lowering the glass as Hannibal leans his head back against the pillows with a quiet exhale. A pause as black eyes fall to a half-close at the painting hung on the wall opposite.  
“The left,” he murmurs.  
“Did you eat it?”  
Amused to find Will humouring him, Hannibal smiles faintly at the framed artwork.  
“No,” he says with a further lowering of his lashes, “I stood on it.”  
“That’s unlike you to make a mess,” Will mutters, unable to help the curling in the corner of his mouth.  
“It wasn’t my floor.”  
Smile fading, Will watches the other’s hand resting upon the covers.  
“Were you jealous?” he asks, voice low and quiet, looking up to find the smile fading similarly from the other’s lips as lidded eyes study the unfamiliar sheets covering his legs.  
“When a species discovers it does not in fact exist alone,” he begins slowly to say, “that there is the chance of compatibility in some shape or form-” He hesitates for a moment as though searching for the correct words, gaze drifting up past Will’s shoulder. “It will defend its company jealously when something threatens to remove it.”  
Blue waits patiently for black which continues to linger beyond his reach.  
“Were you in love with her?”  
“It’s nice to find a degree of understanding in another,” replies Hannibal dismissively, looking down then straight up into him, “but that wasn’t why you fell in love with your wife.”  
“We share a different kind of understanding,” says Will, lowering his eyes to the glass between his hands.  
“Yes,” he murmurs quietly, “I remember the way you stalked me back and forth through the glass. Were you attempting to portray the jealous reaction of a family man? The quiet, loving husband turned dangerous when something threatens to remove his company.” He pauses and Will says nothing. The silence grows, during which Will continues to wait. But Hannibal remains quiet, and soon those lidded eyes have slipped to a close. Leaning back in his chair, Will watches him sleep, listening to the hushed sound of his breathing. 

It weighs on his mind that Hannibal could have been killed in front of him and he wouldn’t have been able to stop it from happening. It was Bedelia who saved Hannibal’s life while he had tried more than once to take it, just as Hannibal himself had tried more than once to take his. And yet he feels a crushing sense of regret intertwined with something else that manifests like a fever in his subconscious until he is dreaming of alternate outcomes – if Daniel had succeeded in cutting open Hannibal’s throat and his blood had sprayed Will with more vigour than anything he had ever imagined, more vehemence than even that time when he had been invited by Hannibal to see himself doing the same to the doctor as he stood before the pigpen in Mason’s barn. The wet heat of Hannibal’s blood showering his skin floods him with a sensation alarmingly akin to orgasm, followed closely by heart-stopping fear of the other’s imminent death – just as the heavy pulsating against his palms of Hannibal’s spurting throat excites him the same time it makes his heart pound from the possibility of loss. Snapping awake from these conflicted feelings, Will drags himself out of the chair, drags his sweat-saturated body onto the bed and lies down on the covers next to Hannibal. He lies there on his stomach until his panting begins to slow and quieten, and his heart no longer threatens to break through his chest. He lies there waiting for his erection to wane.  
“For how much longer do you intend to stare at my face,” he murmurs, eyes slipping open. Will meets those lidded eyes with his own, his damp cheek pressed against the bed.  
“Until you look away.”  
“Would it make it easier if I did, or would you prefer to imagine seeing the light fade in my eyes as you continue to rut against the covers.”  
Unable to respond, Will watches the hand moving across the sheets towards him, holds still as it pushes under his hips. Closing his eyes, he presses his brow into the bed and begins to thrust against the tight clutch of fingers over the trapped shape of his arousal, the fabric of the trousers pulled so taut, he can feel the press of each individual digit – the hard, rolling stroke of his thumb.  
“Your hands were so tight around my neck, Will. Were you trying to strangle me?”  
No reply.  
“And the blood. So warm as it gushed from the wound.”  
His breath quickens.  
“Different to the moist heat of your wife. Did it excite you, Will? Will you hold onto me as you bury your knife into my-”  
With a sharp gasp, Will suddenly ejaculates, so occupied by the force of his release that he does not feel the hand slipping out from beneath his hips. He lies there panting for his breath, eyes barely open, cheek pressed heavily to the covers. Hannibal turns his face to watch him, black depths stirring through the veil of lashes, the smile faint but fond as he moves his hand over Will’s hair and gives the curls a brief ruffle. “What a funny boy you are,” he murmurs, his words the last words Will hears before he succumbs to sleep.


	16. Chapter 16

Hannibal, being Hannibal, is reluctant to remain bedbound for too long. After half a day’s rest, he leaves the bed only to run into Will at the threshold of the bedroom, carrying a plate of food in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other.  
“Where are you going?” Will asks and Hannibal looks down at the simple ingredients stacked in a pile in the middle of the plate.  
“Have you cooked me dinner?” he asks in return, picking up the fork resting on the side. “Liver and onions,” he says thoughtfully, “how hearty and comforting.”  
“Sit down and eat,” instructs Will, walking past the other towards the bed. Doing as he is told, Hannibal follows after and climbs back in beneath the covers. Sitting up in the bed, he accepts the plate offered to him and rests it carefully in his lap. Putting the glass down on the bedside table, Will takes a seat in the chair opposite. He watches Hannibal sink his fork into a piece of liver, the ease with which the prongs prick into the flesh a good sign of its tenderness – Will hadn’t tasted it beforehand. He wasn’t sure if the immaculately labelled contents of Charles’s freezer comprised of livestock or something more attuned to Hannibal’s palate. Leaning against the dining table, sipping her wine, Bedelia had merely smiled at his query.  
“Do you need a knife?” he asks as Hannibal nibbles tentatively at the piece of meat. Maybe he should have cut the liver into even smaller chunks.  
“This is good,” says Hannibal with a smile, “simple but pleasant. Thank you.”  
Will makes a noncommittal noise, leaning forward to rest his arms upon his knees, his hands clasping.  
“We’ve spent all day curtain twitching,” he explains. Hannibal makes a contemplative sound as he chews and swallows before reaching for the glass of orange juice.  
“Curtain twitching is not something I can easily imagine Bedelia doing,” he says amusedly, pressing the rim of the glass to his lips.  
“I did most of it,” Will admits, “Bedelia mostly watched me like a lioness.”  
“You’re afraid she will try to eat you?” chuckles Hannibal, the sound making Will lift his eyes from his hands to the amused expression on the other’s face.  
“Maybe,” he says, eyebrows lofting as Hannibal tips back the glass and Will watches through the open collar of his shirt, the subtle undulation of his throat beneath the gauze as he swallows down the juice. He wonders if each swallow is enough to cause Hannibal pain.  
“While lionesses do most of the hunting,” he says, putting down the glass and picking up the fork, “it is the male lion who claims the spoils of victory.”  
Will imagines the three of them as a pride, struggles to see Bedelia stepping aside for him after a kill. Perhaps Hannibal and he ought to be the lionesses, working together to bring down the larger prey and moving back as Bedelia comes forward to inspect the damage, retreating together to some shadowed space in their post-hunt recovery. Licking at their wounds. Maybe at each other’s. Maybe they’d enjoy the taste of one another enough to trigger claw and teeth. Maybe he’d become so incensed, he’d find the strength to overpower the other male, throw him over onto his back, his hand on his throat, their skin slick with sweat from the exertion, broken here and there from the digging nail. His hand moves up, fingers running through the cool strands of his hair as he bends his head and laps at the gash in the straining neck, pinning the warm body beneath him to the ground with the hard press of his own.  
“Have you eaten?”  
“Eaten?” Will echoes absently, returning from his thoughts to the sight of an empty plate and fingers lowering the fork to its almost spotless surface, as though the other had licked the porcelain clean.  
“Look after yourself, Will,” says Hannibal, “so you may look after me.” He glances up into hooded eyes and raises an eyebrow.  
“A minute ago you were feeling well enough to walk out.”  
“I do feel well enough to walk out,” he retorts, “but somebody doesn’t want me to.”  
Will smiles despite himself, a lopsided and somewhat awkward thing that nevertheless speaks of the comfort he finds in the other’s presence.  
“You can’t look after me if you’re fainting every five steps.”  
“I don’t remember fainting,” says Hannibal with a lofting of his elusive eyebrows, “nor promising to care for you.”  
“Neither do I, but here we are.”  
Hannibal smiles.  
“What.”  
“Your compassion for me is an inconvenience. Will you admit this in your own words?”  
The teasing tone of the other’s voice, the same which triggers a certain stirring within the unfathomable black depths of his eyes, also stirs the mischievous in blue.  
“Being with you is a huge pain in the ass.”  
Instead of berating him for his rudeness, Hannibal blinks.  
“I was not aware we had reached that stage in our courtship.”  
Without an appropriate comeback, Will stands in defeat, takes the plate with the fork from Hannibal’s lap and walks out of the room.

The following day, Bedelia is nowhere to be seen. It is possible she could have left the country, but something tells Will this is simply wishful thinking – lionesses are, after all, exceptionally loyal beasts, although it isn’t uncommon for singular souls to venture off from the main party. He expects her eventual return, even if Hannibal had expressed nonchalance at the thought of her abandonment. He was somewhat under the influence at the time, however, and as usual, Will cannot be entirely sure how much sincerity lies beneath the jesting.  
“I look forward to sampling more of your cuisine,” says Hannibal amicably as he buttons up his borrowed shirt in front of the full length mirror, looking up at Will’s reflection before adding, “such rustic dishes have a certain charm of their own, don’t you think?”  
Sat on the edge of the bed, Will watches the other getting dressed, unsure whether he should be surprised that Charles owns three piece suits that are more or less to Hannibal’s measurements, or to accept this as simply another fact of their strange and shared eccentricity. The main difference seems to be that Charles has a preference for the plain, and each three piece in his possession is limited to the uniform trio of charcoal grey, black, or a dark navy blue. There is only one colour for his many ties: a solid burgundy.  
“By rustic you mean simple and unrefined,” he says, meeting dark eyes in the mirror.  
“As well as warm and inviting,” adds Hannibal placatingly, turning to the side to examine his profile. There is an underlying current to the simplicity of his form, a dangerous energy threatening to burst from the seams of that subdued thread that only just manages to contain the man, or at least the shape of him. In Will’s eyes, the muted navy merely accentuates the ruthlessness of the wearer – the deep red of the silken tie a reminder of his monstrosity. These elegant trappings also shield the other’s most recent show of vulnerability, the gauze obscured beneath the shirt collar closed by a single red knot. He doesn’t think it wise for Hannibal to venture out now, but understands there is no point in expressing verbally what the other already knows.  
“I won’t be long,” he says, pulling on the suit jacket. Will continues to sit there on the edge of the bed, regarding the other with silent disapproval, his arms still folded.  
“If you’re not back in time, I’m eating without you,” he mutters.  
“If you’re worried about the food growing cold, may I suggest a salad of sorts?”  
“It’s not the food I’m worried about.”  
“Seared beef with pomegranate and balsamic dressing,” he says brightly, black eyes glittering as though he is submitting his request to his favourite chef. Will watches him blankly.  
“Simple but delicious,” he continues to remark, pulling the edges of the suit together and buttoning up. “You sear the meat, let it rest, whisk together pomegranate molasses and balsamic vinegar with a little oil and mustard before drizzling over the slices. Make sure the slices are paper-thin and arranged with a scattering of watercress leaves. Are you taking note?” He looks over his shoulder at Will who knits his eyebrows.  
“Are you taking the car?”  
“No,” Hannibal answers simply, stepping over to a chest of drawers and picking up a bottle of aftershave. Will suspects the other is relishing his invasion of the master bedroom in the absence of their host while he paces through the alien hallways and unfamiliar rooms, sits down on unfamiliar chairs, the edge of a desk, the edge of a bed, with continued unease. He waits for Hannibal to elaborate, watching him remove the glass lid of the bottle and take a perfunctory sniff before replacing the lid, putting down the bottle and picking up another.  
“If it comforts you to know, I shall be within walking distance,” he says, turning around as he lifts the next specimen to his nose.  
“As much as knowing your corpse may be lying within range,” Will utters flatly, rising to his feet with his arms still folded. Stood opposite the other, he pauses for a moment, watching Hannibal with a slow tilting of his head. Gradually, Hannibal mirrors the movement, his hooded eyes curious. Will begins to stroll past him on his way to the door, holding that black gaze until he reaches the threshold.  
“My compassion for you is a pain in the ass,” he murmurs before slipping out of sight.

Unlocking the door, Hannibal lets himself into the house, his shoes treading traces of snow across the dark wood flooring. Pushing the door almost to a close behind him, he follows the scent of seared meat, removing his borrowed coat as he walks through the ornate and dimly lit space of the living room on his way to the kitchen. Pausing at the threshold, he finds the table laid simply for three, the neatly placed cutlery - a set at either end of the table and one to the side - gleaming beneath the brightness of the electric chandelier. He drapes the coat over the back of one of the dining chairs and puts the box he’d been carrying down on the unoccupied space opposite the placemat, plate and cutlery. Will is stood at the far end of the kitchen beside the sink, facing him with his back as he focuses on the task at hand. He waits for that dark head of curls to lift and turn to the side, blue meeting black before falling upon white.  
“Some say the red rose symbolises desire and sexual gratification,” he begins to explain. Will turns his attention back to the work surface. Smiling, Hannibal watches down at the furled white heads as he paces towards the sink.  
“A white rose, on the other hand, speaks of love sustained by loyalty and reverence,” he continues to say, stopping to stand beside the rolled-up shirt sleeve, the busy elbow.  
“I didn’t know it was your anniversary,” Will mutters, his eyes on the piece of meat resting on the wooden chopping board, the edge of the knife held in place. He appears to be struggling to cut the paper-thin slices as requested.  
“They’re for you,” he says. Will glances sidelong at the bouquet. After a while, he puts down the knife and accepts the offering with a noisy rustling of paper.  
“What do I do with them?” he asks, holding the flowers in a reluctant fist. Hannibal unbuttons and shucks out of his suit jacket, draping it over the crook of Will’s arm. Then he steps behind the other and deftly undoes the ties of his half apron before slipping the garment from the other’s hips.  
“You could finish laying the table,” he suggests, wrapping the apron around himself and securing it at his lower back with practised ease. He puts his hands on Will’s hips, chest pressing into his back as he rests his chin on the other’s shoulder. The contact causes Will to stiffen and hold still as Hannibal takes a habitual sniff of his neck.  
“He’s here,” he murmurs into Will’s ear, his voice a warm puff of air stroking against the shell. Letting go, he nudges the other aside with his hip, taking over his position at the work surface. “Is the dressing ready?” he asks, picking up the knife and sensing both Will’s hesitation and his attempt to hide it.  
“I think so.”  
“Show me.”  
Will puts the flowers in the sink and the suit jacket to one side on unoccupied marble before moving to fetch the glass bowl. He comes closer and holds it out to Hannibal who stops slicing and dips the finger of his left hand into the dark-coloured mixture. Lifting it to his parting lips, he closes them once more around the digit, sucking and stroking the syrupy substance along his tongue before swallowing down the sugary tartness.  
“Too sweet,” he says, dipping his finger back into the dressing and lifting it to Will’s mouth which slowly opens enough for him to push in gently and rub the slickened pad against his tongue, feel the brief suction before he lowers his hand. A pause as Will swallows and licks his lips, his heavy eyebrows drawing together in deliberate deliberation.  
“More balsamic vinegar?” he asks, the expression on his face so unsure and yet so trusting in his instruction that it stirs that darker longing residing deep within his being, transporting him instantly back to the first days of the hunt when his pulse quickened on his way to the door, his nostrils flaring before the other had even stepped into his room. Without waiting for his reply, Will brings the whisk and the bottle of balsamic over, removes the lid and tips a good swig into the bowl. Putting the bottle down, he gives the mixture a quick whisk before running a finger along the coated glass. Lifting the smeared digit, Will holds it before Hannibal’s face, blue eyes seemingly indifferent as the mirrored offering is accepted with the mirrored yielding of lips – seemingly indifferent still as Hannibal slowly sucks the fingertip clean. 

His eyes fall upon the dish placed before him, roaming with relish over the freshly curling salad leaves, the vivid green contrasting coolly with the fiery palette led by the generous handfuls of pomegranate seeds scattered like rubies across haphazardly piled ribbons of flesh. Flesh that glistens promisingly beneath the luminous lighting – tender, moist, sensuously pink, and offset by the deep garnet of the dressing painting dark droplets and miniature rivers against the stark white of porcelain.  
“This looks delightful, Will,” he says, looking up across the table. Blue meets black past the white heads of the roses before lowering demurely to his own plate. To the untrained eye, such weighted expressions may be mistaken for flirtation, however subtle and faintly toying. Hannibal remembers well these glances at the other’s disposal, recalls how effectively they were utilised back when the wool was pulled over his eyes; in the moment he had allowed the veil to slip, he sanctioned also the falling of another into place, so willing was he then to be blinded by what he longed for. And yet, as they all soon learnt, anyone who attempts to lead the good doctor by the nose is dallying with death, and he will graciously applaud their audacity before peeling the flesh from their bones.  
“I’m curious what you will cook for me next,” he adds, folding the slice of meat once with the flat of his knife and piercing the layer with his fork before sliding it into a rich rivulet of jus.  
“I remain open to requests,” says Will, voice low and quiet. Lifting his fork, Hannibal glances up to see the rim of the wineglass pressing against the other’s lips, blue eyes downcast as they watch the tipping red. Returning his attention to the tempting morsel on the end of his fork, he tilts his head thoughtfully.  
“Whilst we’re residing in the country of its origins,” he suggests, “I must insist on escargot a la bourguignonne.” He takes the forkful of meat into his mouth, sharp ivory edges dragging the supple flesh from silver onto muscle. Swallowing his mouthful of wine, Will looks up from his glass, their eyes meeting as he masticates, unhurried and savouring.  
“Don’t you prefer to raise your own?” Will asks as he continues to watch him, the depths of his eyes heavy with that which cannot be openly expressed. Hannibal takes a quick sip of his wine.  
“Always.”  
“I don’t suppose we’ll be here for much longer.”  
“It’s a shame.”  
“You can start when we’re back. I don’t know where you’ll get them from, but I’ll cook them for you when they’re ready.”  
“Do you enjoy feeding me, Will,” he says, smiling eventually at the other’s lack of reply, the lack of expression – at the effort to remain unperturbed as he wades after him into uncharted waters. He cannot help but be affected by the anxiety that emanates from the opposing end of the table, so deliciously palpable he could impale it on the end of his fork. Tear through it with his teeth. Glancing down at his wineglass, he licks his lips which hang slightly agape in contemplation.  
“Have you ever seen a snail shooting a spear into another?” he asks, sinking the prongs of his fork into another slice of flesh.  
“A spear?”  
“Yes. Calcareous and sometimes shaped like an arrow. Commonly referred to as a love dart.”  
Will picks up his glass and takes another sip of his wine.  
“Before copulation, each snail attempts to shoot their dart into the other,” he continues to explain, “yet the action itself is closer to a stabbing, and can sometimes be so forceful, the dart buries into the internal organs or pierces straight through the body or head to protrude from the other side.” Will’s eyes fall upon Hannibal’s plate.  
“The arrow shot causes only destruction,” he says in quiet echo of Hannibal’s earlier thoughts on Virgil. Smiling, he falls to eating and Will to drinking, the silence between them a sign of his pleasure and the tension coiled within the man sat opposite. With some irony, he imagines himself in Will’s fishing gear, stood in the middle of the stream, casting his scented line, for those with an appetite for reckoning cannot resist the smell of blood. They will come, and they will bite, and he will meet them at the other end of the line.  
“I’m going to have a shower,” Will announces, pushing back in his chair to stand and watch down at him with half-drawn eyes. Holding his gaze, Will tilts his head, licks his lips which part and remain slightly parted as he slowly blinks once, twice, a third time as he adds in a hushed voice, “meet me in ten minutes.” Hannibal watches him leave the table, eyes following the fingertips trailing the polished surface with each step towards the threshold – pausing at the rounded corner adjacent to his elbow. Looking up, he regards that veiled expression with customary indifference, gaze falling once more upon the table when Will turns his attention to the hallway.

With his back facing the doorway, Hannibal continues to sip his wine alone at the table. Time passes in silence. He listens for movement, be it travelling down from the far end of the house or approaching in his direction. Presses a fingertip into the remaining jus on his plate.  
“Hello, Doctor Lecter.”  
Lifting the digit to his lips, he slowly sucks the sweet tartness from the pad and swallows before speaking.  
“Hello, Daniel.”


	17. Chapter 17

He waits for Daniel to step into the room from the threshold, eyes falling upon the ghosting of fingertips along the polished edge of the table as he draws near.  
“How is your shoulder?” he asks amiably, gaze climbing check cuff to check collar of the other’s shirt, and lingering thoughtfully on the line of his jaw, the shade of his returning stubble. Without replying, Daniel scrutinises the surface of the table, the dark depths of his eyes surveying over the empty placemat and the cake box sat opposite before travelling down the length of the table to Will’s untouched plate.  
“I’d imagine it brings you the occasional discomfort not entirely dissimilar to what I experienced,” Hannibal muses aloud, picking up his glass and lifting it towards his lips, “prior to you driving the knife home, of course. Now the pain is more or less constant.” His words gain him a glance from the corners of a vigilant stare which he meets with a mild smile following a sip of wine.  
“Which would bring you more pleasure, I wonder,” he says, eyes falling to a half-close, “the continuation of pain, or a glorious end.”  
“The continuation of pain through to a glorious end,” answers Daniel simply, his voice low and as soft as the brown of his iris, reminding Hannibal of the hidden down on a bird of prey; such a creature, he imagines, would be a joy to pluck.  
“When I envisage my end with you,” says Hannibal, pushing back in his chair and gradually straightening into a stand, palms habitually smoothing down the front of his waistcoat, “I am hanging naked by the wrists against a tree.” Picking up his empty wine glass, he paces round the side of the table opposite the other, feet treading silent upon the wood. “A frozen stick propping open my legs,” he elaborates as he reaches for the bottle, “the steam escaping the black cavity of my body.”  
“Start from the beginning.”  
Hannibal pauses at the command, at the voice that is quiet but firm, an understated threat. He feels eyes boring into his skull and lifts his gaze to the shirt stood opposite – shades of emerald green and navy blue joined together by dark interlocking lines; Will owns a shirt in the same pattern and hue. Withdrawing his hand from the bottle, he rests it before him on the edge of the table.  
“When I envisage my end with you,” he repeats as he continues to travel soundlessly down the remaining length of the table, fingers trailing along the surface, “I see myself rolled onto my back, legs splayed for the first incision.” He rounds the first corner of the table, traces with a finger the edge of Will’s plate on passing. “You cut me from anus to sternum. Push inside to the stomach, the intestines, organs burning like embers in your hands as you tear them from the spine.” He rounds the last corner of the table, looks up and across into broiling brown obscured by low-sweeping lashes, observes lips that remain pressed together as air is drawn and released slowly through the nostrils, the subtle heaving of the chest beneath the check, the unwavering gaze as Hannibal approaches.  
“You see me watching in silent agony,” adds Hannibal, maintaining eye contact as he moves closer, “and grasp yourself with a gore-slickened hand.” He closes the distance between them, the ends of their shoes almost touching as Daniel slowly turns to face him, features void of emotion, pupils constricting under the glare of the electric chandelier. Hannibal glances down at the hand lying close to his own upon the table.  
“You have masturbated to the thought of ejaculating into my body,” he continues to say, hooded eyes tracing the ridge of knuckles beside his, “spraying the empty walls with your semen.”  
“Red and white,” Daniel murmurs past barely moving lips.  
“The colours you dream in,” says Hannibal gently, “it’s beautiful.”  
“Yes.”  
“They failed to share your vision, Richard and Melissa.”  
Daniel looks down to their hands on the table.  
“That night you set out to cut my throat,” says Hannibal with an inviting tilt to his head, “you could have finished despite the shot, but you ran.”  
Daniel turns his face to watch the centrepiece, mute lips prompting Hannibal to continue on his behalf.  
“You have hunted me all this time, yet you no longer follow me to avenge his death. The change of heart both repulses and attracts you.” He pauses for effect, eyes lidding as he watches the other closely. For a moment they stand motionless, listening to the still of the room. Then, in a softly curious voice, Hannibal asks:  
“Are you in love with me, Daniel?”  
Face turning from the roses, Daniel stares at Hannibal, his lips beginning to part. Hannibal lowers his gaze encouragingly.  
“We have waited for someone like you,” he says plainly, “Bedelia and I.”  
“The woman.”  
“I trust with my life,” says Hannibal simply.  
“The man…”  
Veiled black meets burning brown.  
“A sheep among the wolves.”  
“The sacrificial lamb...”  
“If you wish.”  
Daniel leans closer until Hannibal can feel the warmth of his exhale, the scouring of wide staring eyes over the sharp contours of his face.  
“It will be beautiful,” he says, and Daniel snatches the edges of his suit jacket, tugging him in as that dark head thrusts forward to crush open mouth to open mouth. The silence of the room is broken by a clattering of teeth, a clashing of breaths as the steady welling of moisture begins to seep from the corners of slackening, spit-slickened lips. Hannibal inhales deeply through his nose, catches the heady scent of earth as he plays the passive role to the other’s lead, permits the combing of fingers through his hair, the scratch of nails against his scalp as the hand closes suddenly into a fist – and tugs. The damp connection severs with a shared gasp and the snapping of a thin thread of saliva. Swallowing hard, Daniel presses his mouth once more against Hannibal’s, his breath tumbling hot and fast from wet, parted lips.  
“The lamb turns wolf as the great stag stumbles,” he murmurs, “let me put you out of your misery.”  
Eyes lidded, Hannibal smiles.  
“You and Bedelia are truly alike.”

Will sees the jerking in the other’s arm as he approaches them silently from behind, hears the grunt when Hannibal catches the sharp end in his hand. Steps slowing, he watches Hannibal struggle under Daniel’s grip, the droplets of blood falling, striking, trickling down the toes of both men’s shoes. Then, fingers clenching around the handle of his knife, Will lunges forward, trapping Daniel’s neck in the crook of his left arm as the right pulls back then thrusts the blade home. Body stiffening from the strike, Daniel grits his teeth to stifle his groan. Utilising the distraction, Hannibal clasps his slickened palm over Daniel’s fingers and, in one sharp movement, redirects the point of the hunting knife before driving it into Daniel’s gut. Trapped between their figures, Daniel lets slip a ragged gasp as both assailants withdraw their weapons only to thrust harder and deeper into his body. Snagging a fist in Daniel’s hair, Will jerks on the dark strands to bend and expose the throbbing plane of the other’s neck, blue seeking black as he pulls out his knife and lifts it to Daniel’s throat.

Hannibal watches Daniel’s unflinching expression as the blade is dragged from one end to the other, slicing open taut skin to release the torrent that stirs a fluttering of lashes, brings the lips to a close against its hot, metallic spray. Sees Will staring back with cool indifference, his seething blue eyes almost black beneath the half-drawn lids. Will lets go and Daniel drops to the ground between them, his blood running in every direction upon the wood. Gaze falling upon the crumpled body, Hannibal lowers into a squat, unminding of the shimmering pool as it seeps its way beneath the soles of his shoes. Brown eyes lift with effort to meet him as he folds his arms across the top of his thighs.  
“A huntsman cannot afford to stumble,” he says plainly with a tilt to his head. Daniel answers with a coarse gurgling that terminates before it can resemble a coherent sound, yet he labours still with his remaining consciousness to hold Hannibal’s gaze, the glassy surfaces of his doe-like eyes a mirror to the sharp contours of the true prince of the forest. He listens to Daniel’s struggling breaths, the swiftly fading background to Will’s quiet panting from above, and looks up. 

He could do it now. Grab the hair at the top of his head. Drag the stained blade of his knife through his throat. Let go and leave him lying there over the other’s body. Their blood a confluence of two streams forming the same stagnant lake. He would walk away and wash himself clean of it, once and for all. Forget he had ever waded in after him to the point of no return, to the point where he would go under, if he had to, and never resurface. Because drowning with him is to breathe, and like a creature that has adapted itself to circumstance, he struggles to understand an alternative means of existence. He cannot stand it. Despises the very power it has to make him feel so utterly inadequate and spurned in the savage blink of a hooded eye, as though breaking through the surface only to see the one who led you here has now forsaken you for land. He regards Hannibal with an apathy that is somehow aggressive and desperate, driven by the pounding in his chest, the adrenaline still coursing through his veins, and heightened by what can only be recognised as heartache – yet he refuses to call it this. He says nothing as Hannibal rises and paces towards the far end of the kitchen, his shoes trailing a pattern of red upon the wood. The sound of water splashing into the basin interrupts the silence. Unmoving, Will keeps his eyes on the other’s back.  
“Is that what you believe,” he begins to say, voice low and faintly accusatory.  
Bent over the sink, Hannibal continues to lift water to his face.  
“What do you believe?”  
“Answer the question,” says Will, taking an audible step closer in the other’s direction. Straightening up, Hannibal reaches for the nearby tea towel, picks it up and begins to dab the water from his neck, his jaw, his cheek.  
“The retribution in your eyes was directed at me, not Daniel,” he says calmly, watching the cupboard doors for a moment before dropping his gaze to the damp pattern of the towel. “Do you still wish to emulate the moment I took Abigail away from you?”  
Thrown by the accusation, by the raw reminder for reckoning, and pained by the memory of Abigail, of everything that was to be felt that night once the deed was done and Hannibal had walked away, Will falls dumb. With a sudden clarity he sees the teacup falling – a foreboding embodiment of their arrangement – and cannot be sure who knocked it over. Frowning at the other’s serene profile, his lips part uselessly as an uncontrollable welling begins in his eyes. He doesn’t understand why he feels the twisting in his chest when the knife is still held in his hand.  
“I wish to forget,” he eventually utters, unable quite to bear the weakness of his own voice as he turns and walks out of the kitchen. 

Sat alone at the table, Hannibal tends to the wound in his hand before returning to Daniel’s body. Eventually he feels eyes on his person and looks up to find Will watching him from the threshold. Without a word, he helps Hannibal clean up the mess, return the kitchen to its original state. By the time Bedelia returns much later in the evening, emerging at the threshold in her coat and hat, both have washed and changed and are as presentable as all the polished surfaces of the room. Hannibal smiles charmingly at her appearance, glass pausing midway to his lips.  
“Just in time for dessert,” he says brightly, standing up to collect some small plates, cutlery, and a large knife. Bedelia removes her coat and hat and seats herself at the head of the table. Returning to his company, he leans forward between Bedelia and Will – sat at the middle down one side of the table – to unclasp the box. The net collapses neatly to reveal a small cake encased in a layer of pure white frosting forming tumultuous waves across the circular surface. The meticulous movement of the knife reveals three sponge layers – dark velvety red separated by neat lines of snowy frosting. He cuts three pieces and places one offering of decadence before Bedelia, one before Will, and the last he carries to his own seat opposite the latter.  
“Bon appetite.”

Holding the fork absently in his hand, Will looks down and hears those quiet syllables that had travelled down the hallway only to echo once more in his ears – _the colours you dream in. It’s beautiful _. He doesn’t hear what Hannibal is saying to Bedelia, but is aware of the casual tone of his voice, the easy flow of his accent. He believes he must be explaining to her the course of events and suspects Bedelia already knows – was warned beforehand of what was likely to happen.__  
“Will?”  
He drags his eyes up to meet hooded black across the table, and is struck by a sudden wave of nausea and exhaustion.  
“You haven’t touched your cake.”  
Eyes lowering to the sponge, his hand moves on its own accord, separating a small corner from the rest with the edge of the fork. Pricking the piece with the end of the prongs, he lifts it mechanically to his lips, opens his mouth. Closes. Chews. Swallows. He tastes nothing. Once more, he lifts his eyes.  
“It’s delicious,” he says. 

Afterwards, Bedelia explained she would be catching an early morning flight out of Paris. As much as she has enjoyed their gallivanting, she would like to return home now that the hunt is over. He should have been awash with relief. Instead, he cannot stop flooding his body with Charles’s well-stocked liquor. He believes he prefers the distraction of her presence to the thought of having to speak alone with Hannibal, to go through the dreaded process of question and answer. There were many things he wanted to say, but couldn’t bring himself to in the opulent confines of a stranger’s house, in a city he did not know, so removed are they from the beginnings of what he had come to recognise as routine, a place for respite, a shared residence which could, over time, resemble something of a home with all its compromises. _Did you bait him with words so I could approach? Knowing everything you said would make one step forward feel like ten steps back? Is that why you chose them? You wished to provoke us both? See what would happen? And to satisfy your curiosity, you would put yourself in harm’s way, but what if he wanted you? Would you stop to consider his potential. Perhaps you already have. Did you envisage the three of you walking through the streets of Paris – of any city you wish – together _.  
“You should get some rest, Will,” says a quiet voice from the threshold, and Will ignores the eyes, the expression of concern, feigned or otherwise, to pour more wine into his glass. __

Coming to, he opens his eyes to the same glass and bottles which now sit empty before him. Lifting his head from folded arms, he looks at the clock hung on the wall, its small hand pointing to three. He hears voices in the hallway, quiet and intimate. Pushing up from the table, he drags himself towards the threshold, maintains his balance with a hand to the wall as he travels slowly towards the sound. He becomes aware of the distant rumbling of an engine, and approaches the living space in time to see Bedelia and Hannibal stood at the open door. Dressed in her coat and hat, she leans in to press a kiss to Hannibal’s cheek, lingering long enough to murmur something into his ear before glancing over at Will.  
“I wish you a safe journey home,” says Hannibal, and she smiles briefly at him before turning to walk out of the door and down the steps to the awaiting vehicle. Will watches Hannibal watching Bedelia, and turns around to stagger back down the hallway before the other notices. 

The next morning, Hannibal sees Will is still in low spirits and suggests they venture out for some air, make the most of the city before their 5am flight. Without saying much, Will accompanies Hannibal on his visits to various galleries and museums, a silent shadow following the other and offering little in terms of considered responses or comments of his own for a particular painting or artefact. It gets a little easier come evening, when their leisurely walk leads them down the busy boulevard of the Champs-Elysees, the white halo of the Ferris wheel gleaming against the night from the Place de la Concorde. Side by side, they wander like the rest of Paris past wooden chalets erected especially for the festive season, casting an idle eye over the garish wealth of decorative gifts, the fresh crepes being flipped and folded one after another upon the cooking plates, the steam rising from the large open ceramic pots labelled vin chaud blanc, vin chaud rouge. There is no queue waiting at the latter, and Hannibal stops to buy them some mulled wine, which they take in their hands and slowly sip whilst watching the passing crowd. Once Will finishes his, Hannibal offers to buy him another. Will accepts, and has many more until they lose track of how long they have spent leaning against the sticky top of the barrel table. When they finally continue on their walk, hands and blood thawed quite thoroughly by the hot beverages, they come across a gathering outside pale green and gold-gilded windows lined with false hedging bejewelled with golden fairy lights that twinkle in the dark. They look up at the same time to the gold lettering curving out against the equally gilded semi-circular awning hung quaintly above the entrance.  
“Laduree,” drawls Will.  
“Laduree,” corrects Hannibal with an accent that is nonetheless compromised by being under the influence.  
“What do they sell?” asks Will without real interest.  
“Macarons,” answers Hannibal.  
“Macarons,” repeats Will.  
“Would you like some?”  
“No.”  
“Let’s go inside.”

Once back, Hannibal changes into a simple sweater and pyjama pants. On their way back to the house, he had slipped in the snow and fallen onto the pavement. Will took the unscathed box of macarons and carried on walking without offering to help him up. Now, sat in an armchair in the dimly lit living room, he studies the long rectangular box in his lap, traces with a finger the elaborate pattern bordering the centred company name and embossed in a dull gold against black to lend the product a certain elegance. He lifts the lid, brushes aside the delicate tissue paper to find the six large macarons they had selected at random. Studying the different hues of their dainty shells, he realises they haven’t eaten a proper meal all day. Replacing the lid, he puts the box down on the coffee table and picks up his second glass of wine.  
“They say Christmas is about family,” he says, slowly swallowing a generous mouthful. Releasing a breath, he pauses thoughtfully for a moment before looking across to the figure lying outstretched upon the gilded settee. Will had finally made a purchase, even if the items resemble what is already folded and stored away in Hannibal’s chest of drawers, belongings waiting to be transferred back to his own room upon their return. He lies there in a check shirt, propped up by tasselled cushions, staring listlessly up at the ceiling.  
“Would you like to visit your wife and son?” he asks at the lack of comment, and sees Will reaching for the half empty bottle he’d wedged between himself and the upholstery.  
“I don’t think they would appreciate your company,” Will mutters, eyes on the stream of red entering the glass he clutches lazily in a hand.  
“You would invite me to your family home?” he asks with feigned surprise before lidding his eyes pensively. “That is thoughtful of you, Will, although I must admit I have grown rather accustomed to my own company during the festive season.” He takes another large sip of wine. Sees Will lying very still, refusing to make eye contact. He lowers his own gaze to the dark depths of his glass, a finger tracing the perfect circle of the rim.  
“Will I need to send you a card?” he asks.

The question brings an image of their residence to mind, of Hannibal sat writing cards at the desk in his bedroom with Duke lying at his feet, the thin whip of his tail thumping rhythmically against the wood. Warmth seeps through his chest, different to the burn of alcohol and reaching far deeper, yet failing to dispel the lingering suspicion of being tested – all the time, every time. Closing his eyes, he pushes aside the deeper implications of recent events, focusing instead on simpler emotions.  
“I miss Duke,” he says quietly to himself. Opening his eyes, he glances over to find Hannibal staring at nothing, and cannot be sure if he is imagining a wavering within those black, unfathomable depths. 

Tripping over on his way to the kitchen, Hannibal pushes up and pauses when he feels his palm tearing open under the gauze. On all fours, he lifts his hand to watch the violent blossoming of red against white, half aware of footsteps dragging heavily down the hallway towards him. The warmth of another body draws near and Hannibal feels Will’s hands on his sweater, pulling him up to an unsteady stand. Amidst the clumsy grappling that follows, both men end up clasping one another until they fall back against the wall, Will’s brow pressing into Hannibal’s bad shoulder, Hannibal clutching the back of Will’s head with his good hand.  
“What did she say,” Will mumbles into the soft fabric of the sweater, his breath hot as it seeps through the material to twice-scarred skin.  
“Not much,” Hannibal slurs, stroking Will’s hair and vaguely recalling a time when the tresses left rainwater between his fingers.  
“Kill him.”  
Hannibal chuckles lowly, an ironic rumbling from the depths of his throat.  
“She hates me,” Will continues to murmur persistently, bunching the sweater at Hannibal’s sides.  
“Ne visai.”  
“Mistrusts me.”  
“Yes.”  
“And you?” Will asks, lifting his head to stare at the wall.  
“Yes.”  
“Do you trust me?”  
“I have reason to.”  
“You have reason to.”  
“I have reason to.”  
“Mistrust me.”  
“Yes.”  
“Trust me.”  
“Yes.”  
“Which?”  
“Yes.”  
“Stop saying yes.”  
“…okay.”

They stumble their way into Charles’s bedroom, sluggishly remove all their clothing and collapse together onto the sheets. Lying apart, they watch each other with half-drawn eyes, lips parted to their heavy breaths. The staring contest drags on until one falls asleep and the other closes his eyes to follow. 

Hannibal half stirs in the middle of the night to the sight of a Wendigo leaning over him and the sensation of hands around his neck. Blinking slowly, he realises it is Will adorned with ferocious antlers, his eyes black and glassy in the dark, unseeing and all-seeing all at once. As the other begins to strangle him, the heated scent of arousal floods his nostrils, and he becomes aware of the hard shape of it rutting feverishly against him. The building friction generated by Will’s turgid flesh combined with the constriction of his hands causes Hannibal to grow hard. As Will strangles him with enough force to upset the sutures in his neck, Hannibal starts to fight his grip. The frantic thrusting of his hips tells Hannibal he is already nearing, and he snatches Will’s cock in his hand to speed the process. With a harsh, animalistic cry tearing from the back of his throat, Will arches his back and ejaculates over Hannibal who uses the distraction to shove his hand into the throat above and thrust up bodily to flip them over. Teeth gritted, Will fights his grip as he closes his hands around his neck to choke him out of his trance-like state. The harder he strangles Will, the more the other struggles, his fighting instinct lending him a strength and ferocity that Hannibal finds exciting. He becomes acutely aware of the scent of his own arousal and the heaviness of his manhood. Then Will punches him hard across the face. He lets go and Will rolls over onto his side, gasping for air. Tasting blood, Hannibal touches his mouth and finds a gash in the middle of his bottom lip. Exhausted, Will quickly falls asleep, and Hannibal lies down with his back to the other, closes his eyes and wills his erection away.

Come daybreak, he wakes in Will’s embrace. Something smooth and rigid is stroking back and forth against the underside of his throbbing shaft, rubbing over and over along his taut frenulum until he is panting softly from the exquisite jolts of pleasure. The arms tighten over his chest, and he hears Will groaning his wife’s name in his sleep, the syllables muffled by his shoulder. He doesn’t know for how much longer he can take this, as much as he enjoys the sensation of being caught so earnestly by the other without needing to anticipate the sharp end of a blade. Closing his eyes, he reaches down with a hand to clutch at both their shafts and begins to stroke, listening to Will’s breaths blowing against his ear. As his digits become slippery, he opens his eyes to look down and is mildly surprised to find himself leaking copious amounts of precum. A single bead, perfectly round and fat crowns the tip of Will’s head, and he rubs the pad of his thumb into it, rolling and smearing its slickness until he feels Will begin to pulsate and thicken. He feels his own release building inevitably and tightens his grip, fingers gliding furiously back and forth, faster and faster. With a grunt, Will suddenly ejaculates, the unexpected sight of the other’s seed slathering the swollen head of his penis as it shoots, the milky trails running down the full length of his shaft enough to make Hannibal come without a sound. 

Waiting for the pleasure to subside, he becomes aware once more of the weight and warmth of Will’s body as he continues to sleep against him. He waits for a while longer, listening to the steady inhale, exhale, feeling it on his skin. When he is confident the other will not wake, he slips quickly from beneath his arm and moves silently towards the bathroom, eager not to become partial to this.


End file.
